Content:

Lessons of Volunteerism in the Kingdom of Waste (pages: 1-13)

The stone city with the unshaven people    ( pages: 14- 26)

The story of how to make good things (pages: 27- 39)

The little dog (pages: 40-44) 

The story of a lonely girl (pages: 45-53)

Lessons of Volunteerism in the Kingdom of Waste

Once upon a time, in a distant kingdom, lived a heartless king whose kingdom was notorious for the indifference of its inhabitants towards the environment. Far away from the palace lived a poor grandmother with her grandchildren, Patrick and Lara, on a hill. The grandmother had taught her grandchildren to respect nature and to take care to keep it clean by offering their help voluntarily. 

One spring day, the king organized an outdoor party for his daughter's engagement,

 without respecting the environment. When the afternoon was over, the children went to play as they did every afternoon. Suddenly, they saw a pile of garbage thrown here and there in front of them and started to pick it up. By evening, they had turned the dump into a beautiful grove. When they were having dinner with their grandmother, they told her, "Go tell the king to order people not to litter. There's dirt everywhere! Visitors from other places say it's the dirtiest kingdom." The grandmother, troubled, told them, "My children, all I can do is ask him; he's the king, not my friend. I hope he'll understand the terrible situationcreated in the kingdom by the garbage." The children agreed and bid her goodnight.

A few days later, the king went for a walk in the forest and saw a sign that read: "Please do not litter and pollute the grove." The king ignored the sign and had his picnic, leaving behind lots of garbage, along with his entourage. In the following days, the forest had an even worse appearance as it filled up with trash from indifferent people, as no one cared about it. The citizens of the kingdom did as their king did, not caring about the cleanliness of the kingdom. And the day came when the situation in the kingdom became unbearable due to the filth and neglect.

Please do not litter and pollute the grove!!!

The only area in the entire kingdom that shone with cleanliness was the grove that the two children, Lara and Patrick, took care of daily and voluntarily. The people approached the two children and asked them how they managed to keep it so beautiful and clean. The children told them that they cleaned it every day and, to prevent it from being polluted by visitors, they placed signs at various points to remind others of the need to help in its protection. The people then asked them what they got in return for their work, and they answered that there was no reward as they had learned from their grandmother to offer their help voluntarily wherever needed.

After this lesson in volunteering, the citizens, unable to bear the bad image of their place, went to complain to the king about the pollution and the miserable state of the kingdom. The king saw with his own eyes and recognized the mistakes that had been made and said, "Pick up the trash, and I promise that we will all, the inhabitants of the kingdom, be responsible for the environment because it is our home and the home of our children." From that day on, the inhabitants, following the example of the two children, "adopted" various areas of the kingdom and took responsibility for their cleanliness. They cleaned the streets, pruned the trees, watered the plants, protected the strays, and picked upthe trash. They did all this without any reward becausethey knew by then that volunteering, offering, and solidarity are not bought and sold!

The end!!!

The stone city with the unshaven people

Once upon a time, somewhere far away,there  was a stone city. Its people were all gloomy and saddened because they didn΄t have a beautiful green place to spend their leisure time.

The clildren of the stone city were even unhappy because when they finished school and their lessons , they didn't have a quiet green place to play all together. So they were forced to spend their free time locked in their rooms in front of a computer.

However, in the center of this ugly stone city, there was a forest that was also unhappy because no one visited it, neither human nor animal , as people had transformed it into an endless landfill full of filth and useless objects.

The Kind fairy of the tale, seeing so many creatures unhappy, decided to take action. How couldn't people understand that if they paid attention  to where they threw their garbage and cleaned the forest from the filth, it would transform into a paradise that would make them happy?

Knowing that adults don't easily heed advice, she flapped her fairy wings and flew towards a group of a small children sitting sadly on some stone steps.

The children were surprised when they saw  the fairy , but they listened to her very attentively. They were excited about the idea of the fairy cleaning up the dirty forest. Really , how hadn't they thought  of it for so long? So, they immediately took action.

First, they convinced their classmates. Then they asked for help from their teacher. The teacher was excited about their idea. However, she told them that because there was a lot of garbage in the forest and useless objects, they should ask for the mayor's help. 

All together, they went to the mayor to ask for his help as well. The mayor agreed to assist and so began a great effort to clean up the forest.

As soon as the parents heard about their children's efforts, they joyfully rushed to help as well.

So, within a sort period of time, the little forest of the stone city transformed into a green paradise filled with lush trees, colorful flowers , and all kinds of animals.

How immense joy everyone felt! Both young and old understood how important it is to protect the environment and not to pollute it.

Since then, everyone lived happily and joyfully. And not only that. The young students  took  the initiative to organize volunteer groups to speak in other cities about environmental protection and volunteerism ,and to help other people become happy.

The end!

The story of how to make good things

 by Maria Izabela Ivan

translated by Ștefan Ion, Ana Manoliu, Ana Mărișoiu

A long time ago in a city there lived a woman named Ana. She lived in a large house and she had so much money that it could not even fit in the biggest safe you could think of. The walls of the house were full of beautiful paintings.

  This woman, however, was not only happy because of her fortune, but also because of her husband and three daughters. She would do anything for her family and her family members would do the same for her.

When Ana was seen on the street, nobody 

thought she was a loving woman, seeing

the bracelets, rings, earrings and 

 necklaces she was wearing and how they were different everyday; people thought she was an arrogant woman, who had nothing to do, but go on the street, covered in gold and platinum. shining and hoping that someone would notice how beautiful and rich she looked. Ana would always receive disgusted glances from strangers, but she never looked affected because of them.  

     Ana`s husband, Cezar, owned multiple holiday residences and hundreds of thousands (even millions) of dollar bills in his safe. He was always dressed like he was going to special occasions. 

   The only thing that was annoying was that the same strangers were judging Ana`s clothing style  and Cezar`s suit. It was more expensive than anyone could afford.

                One day, seeing him walking along the                     street, someone asked:

             “Sir, why do you and your wife only buy                   expensive clothing?”

      Cezar answered:

     “I don`t know, mister. Maybe we want to have expensive clothes that we like. I don`t even know”.

        That man remained on Cezar`s mind. Arriving home, he called for Ana and his three daughters: Gratiela, 

Ruxandra and Crina, and told them:

 “Someone stopped me on the street and asked me: 

<Sir, why do you and your wife only buy expensive clothing?> Do you know what I told him?”

        “What?” asked Ana.

       “I told him that I didn`t know why  you buy expensive clothes. Do you know why?”

The four of them remained silent for a couple of seconds when suddenly Gratiela broke the silence.

      “I buy them because I like them. I think I`ve always done this.” 

     “Yes”, the rest of them said in the same time.

    “Then, said Cezar, I have another question now.”

        “What is it?”

    “Do you care about other people`s opinions, about us and our fortune?”

     “I don`t care about their opinion regarding 

the way I dress,” Crina said. 

 “It`s my decision what I wear and I don`t think I will throw away all of my clothes just because some people think I shine too  much or too little.”

 “Yes, but can we change at least one thing? You decide what.”

      “No, we don`t need to change anything, Cezar” Ana said.

   Ana`s daughters agreed with her and they decided that they don`t need to change anything in their day to day life.

     A couple of months later, Ana looked in the wardrobes and  asked herself the question that changed her life: 

“Do I need all of these things?” She wasn`t doing that because of what people thought, but to be a better person than the day before.  

    She did not wish for other people to tell her she was a good person, instead she wanted to know deep down she became a better person. She convinced her family to give up on hundreds of clothes. 

    She placed at the door numerous boxes. They were filled up with clothes very fast. In the end, they started to fill up them up with tens of books of every kind.  The last thing this family had donated was blood. 

    They made the donations of clothes, jewelry, money, books and blood a tradition.

              At the end of the year, Crina the youngest daughter, asked her mom:

         “You didn`t do all these things just for people`s on the street, did you?”

   “No, dear. I did it for us, I did it for our family”, said Ana with tears of joy in her eyes.

the end

        The little dog 

It was a sunny spring Saturday .We were so tired with all the exams we had had that week so we decided to have a picnic by the lake .The weather was warm .It was so beautiful there so we  were having lots of fun .

There were some little kids shouting and running very fast and to be honest they were disturbing us.

What are they doing ?

Why are they screaming like that?

Maybe something is happening there ?

We were asking questions but we couldn't see what was really going on with these kids.

Let's approach them - my friend said.

When we went there we could see a very touching scene.

The kids were running fiercely like wild animals throwing stones at a little stray dog .

The seemed very afraid and was running as fast as it could to escape them but they have hurted its leg and now the dog was walking slowly.

Stop it - we shouted

What are you doing to the poor dog ?

Can't you see how much it is suffering ?

We must help animals and don't hurt them .

Haven't you learned that ?

They stopped throwing stones  and looked at us caring for the little dog .We took it to  the animal shelter and talked to the vet.

The little kids came with us and offered their help for the other stray animals in the animal shelter and promised they would always help animals and never hurt them again.

The

      end

THE STORY OF A       LONELY GIRL

by Tatjana Šikić

  The children in one city spent the whole summer on a nearby meadow. They enjoyed the summer holidays, played ball, played tag, hide-and-seek, rode bikes...

One day the boy Peter said he heard from his mom that a new family had moved into his building. They had a daughter who was the same age as Peter and his friends.

The children were looking forward to meeting a new friend, they couldn't wait for her to join them in playing.

But the new girl didn't come out for days...

One day they saw a  girl looking out of a closed window. The children rejoiced, everyone waved to her and invited her to join them. The girl looked at them, but she just kept quiet and didn't even greet them.

This was repeated for several days. The children said that the girl was overbearing, conceited, selfish because she didn't even want to say hello to them let alone want to hang out with them. When they saw her at the window, they would turn their backs on her and go play away from her building.

Only Peter was worried because he had seen the girl sitting alone in the window several times.

However, the next morning, something happened that changed everyone's mind about the girl.

While the children were agreeing on who would run after the others, a new girl came out of the building with her mom. 

But the girl walked slowly holding a white cane in her hand.

The little girl was blind. It immediately became clear to the children why she did not reciprocate their waving as they greeted her and invited her to play. She couldn't see them and everyone was embarrassed because they had a bad and wrong opinion of her.   Peter approached her. He greeted her mom and girl and invited her to join them in playing. The girl named Ana smiled and agreed.

Peter  introduced her to all the new friends. From that day she participated in children's games daily. They learned new songs and stories from her, she taught them to listen and pay attention to all the sounds around them. She taught them a letter for the blind and everyone enjoyed her company. Ana showed them how not to be prejudiced against anyone because all people are equally valuable!