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Friday, November 19, 2010

The great, Big, Enormous Turnip: a story that deals with an important value

by Melina Nuñez

The great, Big, Enormous Turnip is a children´s story retold by Alexei Tolstoy.

It is a very popular story in children´s literature. The main character in this story is an old man, who plants a little turnip. The turnip grows and it is very big, so the old man looks for help to pull it up.

Many English teachers in their lessons and also many parents at home read this story  to their children. They consider this story interesting since the author transmits the value of solidarity to children, which is very important nowadays. Solidarity is concerned with cooperation, and children need to know that cooperate with other people is necessary to live in the society. Solidarity is shown by Alexei Tolstoy in The great, Big, Enormous Turnip as a tool to achieve an objective.

Solidarity is present in the story all the time since the old man receives help from other people and animals to solve his problem and achieve his objective. The reader can notice the presence of solidarity when, for example, the old man realizes that the turnip is very big and he cannot pull it up alone, so he decides to call an old woman. Thanks to the solidarity of the people and the animals, the objective is achieved and the turnip is pulled up. All the characters are together in the end of the story and they share the turnip.

This story is a clear example of solidarity. The author shows the reader that it is not always possible for a person to solve problems alone and that people´s help is useful whenever there are problems to solve.

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