Let's read reading makes you grow

Jasminka Petrovi'

Reading makes you grow ted by

Illustra

v Bob a s o r b o D ' Živkovi

Jasminka Petrovi'

Reading makes you grow Illustrated by

Dobrosav Bob Živkovi'

For Ilija, from his aunt

6

MONDAY

I

don’t like to read and write. This makes my mum desperate. She took me to the eye doctor, then the ear doctor, then the throat doctor and even the stomach doctor.

She thought I was sick, but all of my results were excellent. Now my mum is even more desperate than before. – All right, child, what am I supposed to do with you?

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– Take me to the zoo.

– Don’t be silly, Tamara. I want to talk seriously.

– I want to talk seriously, too. I don’t like letters and don’t make me read anymore!

– But how do you expect to get into university, child?

– What’s a university?

– Now you’re even being rude!

Then my mum turned red in the face. She stood up. Opened the window. Sat down again. Stood up again. Closed the window and started yelling at dad: – It’s all because of you! You let her do what she wants. She doesn’t know order!

She has no work ethic. It’s no wonder she can’t read!

– And you push her too hard. The child can’t catch a break from all the activities:

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ballet, singing, dancing, playing music, drawing, tennis...

– If it were up to you, she would be play­ ing all day long.

– Correct. When is she going to play if not now?!

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– But all other children can read both Latin and Cyrillic letters, everyone except her.

– So what?! There’s time, she’ll learn!

– But when? When?!

– When you leave her alone!

– But how do I leave her alone? Come on, tell me how!

– Easy. Go to your hair dre­ sser.

What am I supposed to do with a hairstyle when she can’t read?!

While my mum and dad are arguing, I am free to do wha­ tever I want. I can stand on one leg, cut my fringe, draw fish on the bathtub, make holes in a rubber with a pencil or match odd socks. One time, they were arguing so much that I went outside. I simply couldn’t listen to them anymore. Since there

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was only that old man from the third floor in front of the building, I immediately returned home.

I wasn’t going to play Jump, Run, Ha-ha-ha with an old man, was I? If he were to beat me at the game, I’d get angry. I would hide his walking stick in the bushes and that wouldn’t be nice. He is an old man, after all. How is he going to climb the stairs without his walking stick? The lift never works.

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12

TUESDAY

W

hen mum and dad make up, that’s when I’m completely busted. First my dad starts teaching me how to write: – Come on, Tamara... Get going, Tamara...

Hurry up, Tamara... What are you waiting for, Tamara...? Do you hear me, Tamara?!

Now you’re really pushing it, Tamara!

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Tamara can’t read and write and she is already in the first grade of school.

Her mother is desperate, her father is angry and she does not care to learn letters at all. Find out how an old man, an opossum, a girl named Heidi and the internet have helped Tamara to learn to read and write.

ISBN 978-86-7781-923-1

9 7 8867 7 81 9231