Into the Margin · ages 9-14

The Emperor's New Clothes

The idea: questioning a text, and the question the story itself asks.

Beto and Inkling walk the margin of a giant open book with Nettle the hedgehog and Yonder the hare.

Read it

Who is in this book

Yonder Predict from the clues before you read on; a wrong guess means the story surprised you from ReadQuest
Beto a child of the Green Takes things apart
Pith Work out a hard word from the words around it from ReadQuest
Nettle Poke the text with why, how and what-if; questions mean you're awake from ReadQuest
Inkling a child of the Green Names what she notices
Sheaf Gather the whole passage into one armful: keep the middle, let loose details fall from ReadQuest

Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

"The Emperor's New Clothes" was written by Hans Christian Andersen and published in Copenhagen in 1837. Source
Andersen borrowed the idea from a much older Spanish story, in a book by Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, from 1335, where weavers fool a king in the same way. Source

Stretched

The tale printed in this book. What we simplified: It is retold in plain words and much shorter; Andersen's own version has more people and more jokes.

Made up

Stepping into the margin of a page is made up. Yonder, Pith, Nettle and Sheaf come from ReadQuest.

Tell it back

Tell the story in your own words: who was there, what went wrong, and what they found out. Then the second of four bookmarks, the questioning one, with a hedgehog on it goes on your belt.

Ring the hammer for someone

Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.

Across the Table → For the grown-up: the story in three lines, one question to ask, and one thing to do together.