The Day Before the Wheel
The idea: a round thing rolls where a flat thing drags.
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
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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
- In 2002 a wooden wheel was found in the Ljubljana Marsh in Slovenia. It is about five thousand one hundred to five thousand three hundred and fifty years old, one of the oldest wooden wheels ever found. Source
- The wheel is made of ash wood and is seventy-two centimetres across. Its oak axle had a square end, so the wheel and the axle turned together. It belonged to a small two-wheeled cart. Source
- A wheel seventy-two centimetres across rolls about two and a quarter metres every time it turns once.
Stretched
- In the story the wheel comes straight from the rollers in one day. What we simplified: Historians think wheels grew out of people using logs as rollers, but nobody saw it happen, and it probably took a very long time.
Made up
- Lan and Inkling, the spark, the buzzing word, the boy and his family's new house post are made up. So is the rain that was coming tomorrow.
Nobody knows
- Nobody knows who made the first wheel, or where. Wheels seem to have appeared at about the same time in different places, and the people who made them left no names. Source
Tell it back
Tell the story in your own words: who was there, what went wrong, and what they found out. Then the letter O, scratched beside the D on the anvil goes on your belt.
On your belt: the letter O, scratched beside the D 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.