English Year 2: Understand both the books that they can already read accurately and fluently and those that they listen to by answering and asking questions; making inferences on the basis of what is being said and done; and predicting what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far.

Cinnamon would be found guilty of first-degree murder. When the guilty verdict was read aloud, Cinnamon looked stunned and stated: “I don’t understand…”Born and raised in England, Neil Gaiman now lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has somehow reached his forties and still tends to need a haircut. A short story set in India by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Divya Srinivasan, and read by a person whose name I could not find on a tiny Vox audio attachment to the physical copy of the book. It’s the story of a blind and mute Indian girl whose parents try—as parents will—anything to get the girl talking. I have an autistic son of 22 who does not talk and we have tried many things to get him to talk, but I have yet to try what these parents tried, which is to put the girl in the same room for a night with a (talking) Bengal tiger. The tiger (for no clear reason) elicits several emotions from the girl, including pain (he digs his nail in her, to prove what?!), fear and love and without much real effort gets her to talk, though her aunt is skeptical the plan worked. The aunt also apparently talks too much, and is annoying, so the tiger not only knows how to get kids to talk, he also knows how to stop aunts from talking: Following the arrests, investigators who had worked the original investigation said that they had always speculated that Cinnamon had not acted alone in killing Linda but Cinnamon had confessed to the murder right away and was adamant that she had acted alone. It was evident that she was protecting her father. “It never jelled real with me. All of the relatives said that Cinnamon and Linda got along famously,” said an investigator. David then told Cinnamon that Patricia was going to explain how to carry out the murder. He left the home while Patricia loaded the gun and handed it to Cinnamon. She told her what to do next: enter Linda’s bedroom and shoot. However, the first shot hadn’t killed Linda. Cinnamon explained to the court room that she could hear Linda crying so she returned to the bedroom and shot once more. 3 English Year 2: Develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by discussing and clarifying the meanings of words, linking new meanings to known vocabulary.

English Year 1: Develop pleasure in reading, motivation to read, vocabulary and understanding by being encouraged to link what they read or hear to their own experiences The story itself is about a princess that doesn't speak. After numerous teachers have tried everything they could think of, she therefore gets put in a room with a man-eating tiger. But, typical Gaiman, nothing is as it first appears.

Curriculum

See Neil speaking about his new novel, Fortunately, the Milk, a time-travelling adventure for young readers featuring aliens, dinosaurs, volcano gods and a pint of milk that saves the universe!