Warm and Comforting

Do you ever enjoy going to some place warm and secure and comforting? I do. Sometimes, I retreat into childishness and have a doughnut (or two or three) and a cup of hot chocolate. I read or write a children’s story and there I am until I feel grown-up enough to take on the world […]

Dancing Saved Their Lives

This story/poem sold to Turtle magazine in 1990. Melody Mouse Melody, a small, gray mouse, lived inside a people house along with many mousey others: mother, cousins, sisters, brothers. “To be alert, you must be able. The cat may lurk by chair or table,” her mother told small Melody. “So, exercise; eat carefully.” Now, exercise, […]

A Spider’s Web

A Spider’s Web

A Fable By Blanche Day Manos The hundred year-old barn was home to a cow, a rooster, some hens, and a mule who pulled a plow. The days they spent in working; each one did its best, and when the sun sank from the sky, the animals wanted rest. But, when evening fell across the […]

Melody Mouse Means Business

Melody Mouse Melody, a small, gray mouse, lived inside a people house along with many mousey others: mother, cousins, sisters, brothers. “To be alert, you must be able. The cat may lurk by chair or table,” her mother told small Melody. “So, exercise; eat carefully.” Now, exercise, for Melody, was dancing very regularly. Her friends […]

Melody

Melody

  Melody Mouse Melody, a small, gray mouse, lived inside a people house along with many mousey others: mother, cousins, sisters, brothers. “To be alert, you must be able. The cat may lurk by chair or table,” her mother told small Melody. “So, exercise; eat carefully.” Now, exercise, for Melody, was dancing very regularly. Her […]

Stay Alert and Trim and Fit

Stay Alert and Trim and Fit

  You may have read this rhymed story before today, on a previous post, or, if you subscribed to Turtle Magazine in 1990, you may have read it in the August issue. This morning, I got up thinking of how joy is essential in a person’s life and, of course, if we feel well, it’s […]