# Littérature de jeunesse en anglais : La poire magique/Présentation du livre

* Couverture du livre anglais
* Passe-temps pour les enfants
Comment dessiner, sur ardoise ou sur tablette ou sur papier, une dizaine d'animaux à partir d'un contour de poire.

## Douze séances de lecture et de dessin

* La poire (The pear : a stem, a blossom-end)
* L'éléphant (The elephant)
* La souris (The mouse)
* Le chien (The dog)
* Le poussin (The chicken)
* Le hibou (The owl)
* Le chat (The cat)
* Le canard (The duck)
* Le poisson (The fish)
* La grenouille (The frog)
* Le rouge-gorge (The robin)
* Le lapin (The rabbit)

## Activités complémentaires

En maternelle, ou en groupes de besoin, les textes peuvent être lus par l'adulte au fur et à mesure de la progression de chaque dessin.

### Arts plastiques

* Coloriages des onze planches en noir et blanc à imprimer

### Diaporamas sonores

* Diaporama sonore en anglais sur Raconte-moi
* Participez avec vos élèves en enregistrant les textes en français de chacun des animaux prisonniers d'une poire et déposez le fichier audio sur Wikimedia Commons, pour déboucher sur d'autres "Raconte-moi" en français... ou en anglais.

### Jeux

* Reconnaitre les cris des animaux
* Associer les noms des animaux avec ce qu’ils mangent, leurs déplacements...
* Inventer d'autres dessins

## Texte d'origine en anglais

There is a nice hunting-dog curled up fast asleep in this Magic Pear. Now come out, sir! We will call you just six times and no more. Draw the Pear, rub out the blossom-end and stem. Once! Draw the starting-line for forhead. Twice! Then draw the long hanging ears. Three times! Finish the ears, draw eye-circles and mouth-line. Four times! In come eye-balls and nostrils. Five times! (he is waking up!) lip-lines, nose-shading and eyebrows. Six times! Hello, doggie!
Ah, funny Magic Pear, any child can guess what you hold this time! You look, outside, like a fat bird fast asleep. Is there not a downy little chicken inside? Let us see. Come out, chicken! Yes, here is the head, here a sign of a wing, here a little leg! Here is a hungry bill! Here is the comb, the eyes, here are wing-feathers! All the toes! Yes, here he is, tail-feathers, down, and all – a darling, cunning little chicken, so wide awake, and so hungry!
Inside this Magic Pear sits a big wise bird, straight and stiff. You can almost see his form as soon as you rub the stem off the pear. Let us make sone eye-shapes, round and wide open, and some claws. Now, some eye-ball shapes and some wings. Next a beak and a tail. Now for the eyeballs; a few feathers too. The finish his eyes, his crest, his feathers, and make him a perch. There! Tu-whit, tu-who! Tu-whit! Tu-who!
A sleepy little animal sits in this Magic Pear. Rub the stem off, draw the face-line and you see a ball of fur, as a cat looks when asleep. Now draw a criss-cross for nose and mouth, then the breast-bone curve. Now carry the face-line up into ears, the nose-line up into eye-brows, and make paw-lines. Now for whiskers, eyes and claws! A curly-cue and – Whisk! comes kitty's tail. Yes, it is kitty, and as cross as can be because she has been roused from her nap.
This time the Magic Pear holds a duck. We will let him out and see him swim away. Draw the Pear laid on its side. Rub out the stem. Draw two circles (round a button, if you like) and a straight line, and you will see a head, bill, and a wing-place. It looks like a duck now. Now finish the bill, draw the eye, the leg, the tail. A few more marks on wing, bill, eye, claws and feathers – and splash! goes your duck into the water!
A water-creature is shut up in this Magic Pear. Draw the Pear lying on its side on your slate. Then rub out the stem. Draw a large curve with a tail for the head, and an oval for an eye. The second set of curves, ovals and lines will make the creature look very much alive. The third set will make it look fierce. The fourth set will make it fiercer. The fifth drawing will show you a big, hungry, ugly fish. Is it not strange that so many animals have a body which is the shape of a pear? Draw the Magic Pear on our slates once more, and see what will grow out of it this time? Rub off the stem and the blossom-end. Then draw in the lines of the five pear-shapes, one by one. The very first mouth-lines cry out « Frog! Frog! » If you draw with brown crayons, you will think that the last one is a real, live frog. Can you not hear him say. « Ker-chunk! Ker-chunk! »
There is a plump song-bird in this Magic Pear.
When you first try to call him out on our slate with your pencil, you will see only signs of a hungry bird. The next time he will look as if he were crying for a worm. The next time he has got out of the nest, still hungry;
but the last time he stands on a twig, happy and strong, and you can see that he sings with all his might.
What is shut up in the Magic Pear this time? The first drawing looks like a sleepy dog. The second looks like a sleepy cat. But the third tries to tell the secret – it is, perhaps, a rabbit. The fourth makes us sure that he is a rabbit. Ah, there he comes – Master Bunny himself – but so doleful, so dismal! Is he going to cry because we have brought him out of the Pear and waked him up? I think he is. Such a cry-baby rabbit!