The Long Stick
The idea: a longer lever lifts more for the same push.
Read it
One story, three ways: Sprout for a new reader, Grower in short chapters, Reader as a full chapter book. Same plot, same ending.
Who is in this book
-
Lan a child of the Green Goes first; makes a friend in a minute -
Inkling a child of the Green Names what she notices
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 are true, stretched or made up — and what does nobody know?
True
- A shadoof is a long pole on a post, with a bucket at one end and a heavy weight at the other, for lifting water. The oldest known picture of one is on a cylinder seal from Mesopotamia, about four thousand two hundred years old. Source
- Shadoofs are still used in some places today. A painting in a tomb in Egypt from about 1250 BCE shows one too. Source
- A stick on a post balances when the weight times its distance on one side equals the push times its distance on the other. Twelve, one step away, balances six, two steps away. Twice as far, half the push.
Stretched
- In the story the bucket hangs on the short end of the pole. What we simplified: Real shadoofs usually hang the bucket on the long end and put a heavy lump of mud or stone on the short end, so the weight does the lifting and the bucket can rise higher. We kept the bucket on the short end to show the long stick most simply.
Made up
- Lan and Inkling, the spark, the buzzing words, the girl, her brother and her grandmother are made up. So is the hot wind that was coming tomorrow.
Nobody knows
- Nobody knows who made the first shadoof, or where. The oldest picture of one is on a seal; the seal does not say who thought of it. Source
Tell it back
Tell the story in your own words: who was there, what went wrong, and what they found out. Then a second letter O, scratched beside the first on the anvil goes on your belt.
On your belt: a second letter O, scratched beside the first on the anvil.
Your belt lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
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.