The Day Before · ages 6-8

One Rope, Two Wheels

The idea: a pulley turns a pull down into a lift up.

Read it

Sprout 295 words Grower 846 words · 10 chapters Reader 3683 words · 10 chapters

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

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

The oldest evidence of pulleys comes from Egypt, about three thousand nine hundred years ago, and from Mesopotamia at about the same time. Source
A wheel fixed in one place with a rope over it changes the way you pull: you pull down, and the load goes up. Source
A wheel that rides on the load itself, so two parts of the rope hold it up, halves the pull you need. You have to pull the rope twice as far. Source

Stretched

In the story the pulley and the second wheel are both worked out in one afternoon, on one roof. What we simplified: Pulleys were probably improved slowly, by many people, over a long time. The famous stories about pulleys with several wheels, told about the Greek thinker Archimedes, come from more than a thousand years later.

Made up

Lan and Inkling, the spark, the buzzing word, the boy, his sister, his uncle and the new room on the roof are made up.

Nobody knows

Nobody knows who made the first pulley. The earliest evidence does not come with a name. 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 R, the last of the four; the anvil reads DOOR goes on your belt.

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.

Across the Table → For the grown-up: the story in three lines, one question to ask, and one thing to do together.