What a Character!

Concept Words

Story Words 	Concept Words 	Thinking Words 	
Mayzie the bird 	Lazy: "She can't even be bothered hatching her own egg. As soon as she feels tired, bored or her legs have a kink in them she wants to fly off for a holiday. She wants just to have fun. She wouldn't stop having fun and come home to do her own work. She left Horton to do the job and it wasn't his own egg !"
Cunning: "She tricked Horton into sitting on her nest for her. She told him how kind and gentle he was. She flattered him to get her own way. She also told him she wouldn't be away long and that she would come back. She didn't come back! At the end she screamed out loud in front of everyone that the egg was hers and that Horton had stolen it !! She wanted to have the baby bird after tricking Horton into hatching the egg for her - very cunning !"
Irresponsible: "She flew off for a long time and left her egg in the care of someone else. Elephants are not designed to look after eggs - they give birth to live babies and Horton was a male elephant. Male elephants (bulls) don't have babies! How did she know he would stay sitting on her egg. He might have got sick of doing something that was so unnatural for an elephant and left the egg to get cold and die in the nest."
Dishonest: "Mayzie broke her word to Horton. She did not come back to her nest. She stayed in Florida enjoying the sun. She also tried to claim the baby back when it was hatched by claiming that Horton had hatched the egg."	
Horton The Elephant 	Kind: "Horton helped Mayzie out by sitting on her nest while she had a holiday. He also made sure the egg would not get cold by staying on the egg no matter what happened to him."
Faithful: "Horton sat on the nest through rain, sleet and snow. He put up with being teased by his friends and taunted by crowds of people at the circus show. Hunters trapped him and transported him across the sea to sell him to a circus and still he faithfully sat on the nest. Even when the circus traveled around the country Horton sat on that nest - he was 100% faithful."
Sensible: "Horton knew that he was too heavy to sit in a tree so he propped the tree up so it would be strong enough to take his weight"	
Horton's Friends 	Unkind: "They came to see what Horton was doing and laughed at him, teased him and called him names 'Old horton thinks he's a bird'. Then they ran off and left him"	
The Hunters 	Stealthy: "The hunters were able to creep up on Horton so quietly that he did not hear them approach him."
Amazed: "They had never seen an elephant sitting on a nest before, especially one who defied them to shoot him for protecting the egg. They dropped their guns and stared at him in wide-eyed amazement."
Entrepreneurial: "They worked out that they could move Horton, the egg, nest and tree by ship to a big city like New York where they would be able to sell him to a circus show. They made money out of Horton's kind and faithful personality, which would tolerate no end of difficulties and never give up on his promise."	

© Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand (First published 1998)