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Dr Audrey Coatesworth - PLP Publishings
Createspace
Category:
Children
Publisher: PLP Publishings(UK)
ISBN-10: 1475129378
Type: Fiction
Pages: 70
Copyright: Feb 2011
ISBN-13: 9781475129373
Price: $1.00 (eBook)
This is a short story about a girl who had everything but is restless and, basically, unhappy. A poor girl who has apparently nothing, teaches her and her parents by example that material possessions do not buy happiness.
In this short story Dr Audrey Coatesworth again gives gentle guidance to children through the written word. There are also 10 poems with a similar theme.
The book is a gentle read about a princess and therefore, by its nature, more for girls aged up to enjoy. Suitable for 7-10 years.
It has no illustrations, thereby allowing the reader to make their own inner images and meaning to the story.
A princess has everything possible in material possessions and attentive companions, but, though loved deeply, has little attention from her busy parents. She is unhappy and restless. She meets a young girl of the same age who is poor, without any company or anything that would apparently make her happy, yet she is busy and content.
Gradually they become friends and the poor girl, by her example teaches the princess a different set or values and skills, which enable her to gain happiness and, hopefully, influence her parents - but that we shall never know!
This book is printed and sold in USA at Createspace
Also available as an ebook - from Amazon.co.uk for $4.99
Note for parents and teachers: Visit my children's website at www.primaryschoolpoems.com and let your children enjoy this site, which I have made for them - poems, stories, interests, sing along songs, videos of baby tortoises and more.
Excerpt
THE GIRL WHO HAD EVERYTHING
The little princess walked from room to room. ‘Where shall I play today?’ she wondered.
Her name was Princess Annabel Susanna. She was the only daughter of the king and queen of a Kingdom which had mountains, lakes, and forests. She was as pretty as any little girl could be with brown curly hair, which shone with a reddish glow in the sunlight, and big brown eyes. She was at this time nearly nine years of age.
She could read and do her sums and was enjoying learning to play the piano, though she hated the recorder. Yes, she really hated it as all she made was a squeaky sound. She wanted to learn to play the guitar but her teacher said it was too difficult for her until she was older. Sometimes she would watch television when her governess allowed. She had her lessons in the palace school room with eleven other little children chosen for her by her parents as being ‘suitable companions’. These were six boys and five girls.
As you can imagine she had everything any little girl could want. Her parents wanted her to be happy and provided her with everything they could think of for a little girl’s enjoyment.
Imagine these rooms!
One room was filled with dolls. She loved dolls but how do you play with about fifty? Which one should she choose? It was so difficult that sometimes she would just stand at the door and look into the room.
Why? Well, she had dolls dressed in the clothes of different countries, dolls in silk dresses and with long hair and china faces, looking all prim and proper. There were some in trousers and with high heeled shoes with coats and hats to match. Some were like babies with nappies and a bottle, complete with high chair, pram and cot. She had endless changes of clothes for those with flexible arms and legs. There were clothes of every colour and size to fit any doll in the room, all on little coat hangers in rows under a shelf at just the right height. Combs and brushes for her dolls were in silver, and shone on the three little dressing tables which had been specially made for her so she could do all her dolls’ hair - just as her maid did her hair each morning. She had six dolls houses! She didn’t know which to play with.
Another room had so many books that no one had ever counted them and drawing materials of every kind. There were so many that she could have spent every hour, all day and every day for months in that room, just drawing and reading. A table was set in the middle of the room with several chairs, all ready for her many friends to join her. She had the latest computers, one was pink, one was blue, one was green and one was red. She had paints and brushes, crayons, felt tip pens of every colour and thickness you could imagine. All the kingdom’s favourite children’s books were lined up in order on the shelves. But, which one should she choose to read? Which would she enjoy the most? Oh dear, how was she to know?
There was one room, with cutting out materials, set aside just for making pictures and collages, with a floor that the maids could easily clean when paint or water was spilled on it. On the few tables around the room, there were bits of one and bits of another. There were hooks on the wall, ready and waiting for the collages to be displayed, but I have to say that though many were started, none were finished.
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Old Toys
I do not play with that doll
Which I put in the big drawer
I think I will give it away
So someone can love it more
I got that book when I was three
And then, I couldn’t read
But now I never look at it
So, something else that I don’t need
Mummy is quite pleased to see
I’m sorting out my toys
She says she will take them
For other girls and boys
But, there are some I shall keep
With each a story can be told
Memories to share with my children
When I become quite old
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