Tag Archives: morals

by

The Truant Boy: A Moral Behind Every Children’s Story

In The Truant by Abbott, it tells a story about a boy named Henry who skipped school when he found a boat as he traveled there. Not only did he discover the boat, but he decided that he should sit in it a little while before he continued his journey on to school. However, after paddling deeper into the stream he struggled to get back ashore and by the time he did reach dry land he was too tired to even go to school. The next day when he arrived for school, he had to make up a lie to avoid getting detention and he got away without any repercussions.  So, once he realized that he could get away with skipping school, he began to do it more often; but each time he lied to his teacher, he would develop a guilty conscience.

In my opinion, I feel that this story follows the guideline of most children’s literature. Almost every piece of literature where children are audience, there is some type of lesson that the author tries to project through their writing. The moral of this short story tells young readers that it is never good to lie under any circumstances. In the story, not only did Henry lie but he also developed a guilty conscience because he knew that skipping school was wrong, but he also knew that telling a story to avoid getting in trouble was even worse. I’m not completely sure if Abbott intended to also show that one bad thing can lead to a world of other negative things, however that’s what I got out of the reading and I think that is also a good hidden message for children to know. A lot of literature written for children prepares them for certain essential aspects of the real world such as never to lie, cheat or steal.

by

Rollo

The interesting thing I noticed while reading the story Rollo at Play in the Woods by James Abott was the use of the word penitent at the beginning of the story on page 11 and towards the end of the story on page 23. I think this one word stuck to me because to me it was the meaning of the whole story where one experiences regret and learns how to set things right. Penitent means the regret one feels when they did something wrong and in this story Rollo and his cousin James felt just that. In the story the mother of Rollo and the character that seems to be a more mature play the role of leading Rollo into what the moral of the story is. On page 9 the mother says to Rollo, “Now it is my duty not to yield to such feelings as you have now, but to punish them” shows that she’s guiding him to what is perceived to be the right thing to do. I think that the moral of the story is to get children to right their wrongs and understand what it means to be fair.