The Mother Tongue, Book I: Lessons in Speaking, Reading and Writing English · Secs. 272–274 · Part 2: Part Second
77. A Book: a riddle with double meanings
Goal: Your child explains words with two meanings and learns a riddle poem.
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- Paper and pencil (a notebook kept just for this book works well)
- A dictionary
What's in the book
Section 272 lists words to look up (contradiction, decked, grave, gay, compass, confute, stops, monarch, pages ...). Section 273 is Hannah More's riddle "A Book", to copy. Section 274 asks the child to explain every contrast and the double meanings, and to write the rhyme from memory.
The lesson, step by step
Look up the words (Section 272)
Your child looks up four or five of the words in the dictionary and reads the meanings aloud. Keep the others for talking.
Read the riddle
Read "A Book" aloud. Don't tell the answer yet if your child hasn't looked at the title. (The title gives it away!)
I'm often in tatters, and oft decked with gold;
And no monarch alive has so many pages.
Explain the contrasts (Section 274)
Go through it together: How is a book new and old? black and white? grave and gay? heavy and light? covered with skin?
Double meanings
The book says many words have two meanings here. Find them: points (of a compass, and the points or periods in print), stops (holes on a flute, and stops in punctuation), pages (of a book, and boy servants of a king).
Copy and learn
Your child copies the riddle, watching every apostrophe (I'm, I've), then learns four lines a day.
Check it gently
Your child checks the copy for apostrophes in I'm and I've. Fix any missing.
What a good result looks like
Example (written for this guide, not from the book):
A copy with every apostrophe in place (I'm, I've), and one double meaning explained in your child's words:
"Pages" can be the paper leaves of a book, or the boys who served a king.
Afterwards
Write the riddle from memory at the end of the week.
Answers to the book's problems
Contrasts: new and old (new copies of old books); in tatters or decked with gold (worn or finely bound); black and white (print on paper); grave and gay (serious and funny books); heavy and light (in weight, or in subject); thick and thin; no flesh or bone, yet covered with skin (leather binding); points and stops (punctuation, with a pun on the compass's points and the flute's stops); sings without voice (poetry); confutes without speaking (proves people wrong in print); English, German, French and Dutch (books in many languages); some die soon, some live for ages; pages (of a book, and a king's page boys).
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.