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1 © OxfOrd university press

This ungraded summary is for the teacher’s use only and should not be given to students.

Songs from the Soul: Stories from Around the WorldRetold by Jennifer Bassett

Introduction

starts to rain.

With sincere intent is set in a hospital in New

Zealand. Bill is lying in bed and he is chatting to his

wife who is visiting him. He tells her funny stories

about another male patient. The man’s family had a

series of problems because they didn’t know how to

do basic things at home without him. He asks his wife

if she knows how to do things such as turn off the

electricity and water supply. She says ‘yes’ and he

seems comforted. He then goes on to explain that he

doesn’t have long to live and they hug each other.

the strange Child takes place in Nigeria. Linda

has been married to her husband, Emeka, for three

years and they have a two-year-old son. She has often

asked to meet Emeka’s family but he has always

refused, saying that they have disowned him. In the

end, she decides to go to his home village with their

son. She arrives at the family home and meets

Emeka’s father. To her extreme surprise, he explains

that Emeka died exactly three years ago in a car crash

and he shows her his grave. Emeka’s father looks at

the two-year-old boy and realizes that he looks exactly

like Emeka at that age. He wonders what will happen

to the strange boy.

treason is the story of an Indian man who takes his

pretty young daughter, Kanna, to visit her ‘grandmother’.

The girl has never heard of this grandmother before

and she is reluctant to visit her. However, she trusts

her father and goes along with him, even if he is

behaving rather strangely on that particular day. They

arrive at the ‘grandmother’s’ huge and beautiful house,

followed by a yellow butterfly. They go in and meet a

very rich woman, but she doesn’t look like a

grandmother at all. It becomes clear that the young girl

will be the woman’s servant and the father is going to

leave her there. The girl doesn’t say anything because

the evening train is set in a quiet Indian village

where an old man called Keshto sells potato cakes to

passengers from the evening train. Keshto’s wife is

dead and his grown-up son, Karthik, now wants to

move to the city. Karthik plans to start a food stall with

the help of a man that he knows. At the end of the

story, Keshto learns that his son is talking to this man.

Keshto understands that it is too late to stop his son

leaving the village and starting a new life.

Complicity is narrated by a young girl called Emma

who lives in a dirty British mining village with her

brother, Jimmy, and her parents. Her father has had an

accident at the mine and he now stays at home. One

day, Jimmy and Emma go with their mother, Rose, to

a farm. Rose takes a jug of cider for Dan, the farmer.

She has been promised that she can exchange it for a

chicken. Emma watches her mother catch a chicken

and sees how she behaves with the farmer. Her

mother obviously knows the man well. Does she have

a secret?

In the Malaysian story the Luck of four, a large

and unhealthy man called Chai comes into a coffee-

shop belonging to his good friend Samy. Chai always

buys lottery tickets and Samy asks him for one. Chai

says he can have number four-four-four-four because it

is his own birth date. When Chai says the numbers,

Samy remembers that ‘four’ sounds like ‘death’ in

Chinese, but he doesn’t say anything. Chai begins to

feel ill. He goes home and dies of a heart attack. That

night, Samy watches the lottery on TV and he suddenly

realizes that he has won with the ticket.

Chinna and Muthu is set in an Indian village which

hasn’t had rain for a long time. Chinna is the young son

of the village chief, who is going to sacrifice a goat the

next day to ask the Gods for rain. That night, Chinna

hugs and talks to the goat, which he calls Muthu. In

the morning, the villagers come to the Chief’s house

for the sacrifice but the goat has gone. They start to

shout angrily, but the Chief suddenly suggests that

they offer a big pumpkin to the Gods instead and this

is accepted. Chinna isn’t sure if his father knows that

he’s hidden the goat and he can’t work out if he’s

angry or not. The story has a happy ending when it

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2 © OxfOrd university press

Songs from the Soul: Stories from Around the WorldRetold by Jennifer Bassett

she doesn’t want her father to be angry. At the end,

both the father and the yellow butterfly have gone.

In the deceivers, Gbenga is on a computer in a

busy cyber café in Nigeria. He logs into an Internet

chat room where he pretends to be Celia – an

American girl. He has pretended to be Celia before

and has arranged to chat to an American man again

called Mervyn. However, Gbenga is not just innocently

chatting to Mervyn, he would like to cheat money out

of him. During their online conversation, Mervyn

suddenly hesitates when ‘Celia’ (Gbenga) asks for his

surname. Suddenly, a man on the opposite computer

in the cyber café asks how to spell the surname

‘Prescott’. Gbenga tells him and then he is amazed to

see Mervyn reply online that his surname is Prescott.

The Nigerian man opposite is Mervyn! He is doing

exactly the same thing as Gbenga – they are both

trying to get money by impersonating people in a chat

room.

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2Songs from the Soul: Stories from Around the WorldPre-reading activity

Crossword

Read the clues and fill in the crossword.      1                 

2                      3 

                       

4                       

      5            6     

              7         

          8        9     

    10                   

                       

  11    12            13     

                       

  14                     

AcroSS:

2 a café with a lot of computers where you can go on the Internet, send emails, etc.

4 to quickly close and open one eye as a secret message to another person

5 an area of short grass in a park or a garden6 soft wet earth

9 to move your head down and up again quickly; it means ‘yes’ or ‘hello’

10 to be slow to speak because you are not sure what to say

12 very, very big; for example, an elephant or a mountain

14 an insect with big coloured wings; it flies from flower to flower

Down:

1 a piece of jewellery to wear around your neck; sometimes it is gold or silver

3 a small area of water; for example, in a garden

6 a very big hole in the ground where people get coal, diamonds, gold, etc.

7 a substance that you use with water for washing

8 to laugh in a silly way because you are nervous or amused

11 to cry noisily when you feel very sad about something

12 a small, simple building with one room; it is often made of wood or metal

13 an informal word for a man

To the teacherAim: To introduce key vocabulary and to encourage

students to predict the contents of three of the stories.

Time: 40–50 minutes

Organization: Give one copy of the worksheet to each

group of students. Tell the students they are going to do

a crossword to focus on key words that appear in the

book. They have ten minutes to write in as many words

as possible. After this, they can use the glossary to help

them with the rest of the words. Go through the

vocabulary as a class and deal with any remaining

difficulty over meanings.

Finally, ask students to turn to the following pages which

have illustrations from three stories: p 9, p 33, p 35,

p 38. Can they see any of the words from the crossword

in the illustrations? What do they think the stories

(Complicity, treason and the deceivers) might be

about? Which story looks the most interesting? Why?

Key: Across: 2 cyber café, 4 wink, 5 lawn, 6 mud, 9 nod,

10 hesitate, 12 huge, 14 butterfly.

Down: 1 necklace, 3 pond, 6 mine, 7 soap, 8 giggle,

11 sob, 12 hut, 13 guy.

Illustrations: p 9 mud, giggle; p 33 lawn, pond, necklace,

huge (house); p 35 butterfly; p 38 cyber café, guy.

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2Songs from the Soul: Stories from Around the WorldWhile reading activity

What will happen next?

The Luck of four

Which of these things do you think will happen in the story?

wILL HAPPEn

MAY HAPPEn

won’T HAPPEn

YoUr own coMMEnTS

The kitchen-boy secretly takes the ticket. he thinks four-four-four-four will be very lucky.

chai becomes angry with Samy. he asks for his ticket back, but Samy says ‘no’.

chai goes home alone. he dies before he can watch the TV lottery show.

Samy follows chai home. Samy saves chai’s life and gives him back the ticket.

Samy keeps the ticket. he learns from the TV that he has won the lottery.

chInna and MuThu

Which of these things do you think will happen in the story?

wILL HAPPEn

MAY HAPPEn

won’T HAPPEn

YoUr own coMMEnTS

chinna tries to take Muthu the goat away, but the angry villagers stop him.

chinna hides Muthu in a secret place.

chinna watches the sacrifice of Muthu. he tries to save the goat, but it dies.

chinna’s father doesn’t kill Muthu. he breaks a pumpkin for the Gods instead.

There is no rain and the villagers become very angry with chinna’s father.

It starts to rain again in the village.

To the teacherWhere: the Luck of four, page 12, when students

have read up to the end of the final paragraph on that

page. Chinna and Muthu, page 17, when students have

read down to the bottom of the page.

Aim: To encourage students to predict the development

of the stories.

Time: 20 minutes: 10 minutes for each story

Organization: Stop the students reading at the points

indicated above. Give one copy of the worksheet to each

student or group of students. Ask them to fill in the

table with their predictions. They can also add their own

ideas. Conduct feedback on their ideas as a class to

encourage them to justify their opinions. Ask them to

discuss and decide what will happen. It is not important

whether their predictions are correct or not. They should

keep their worksheets to compare at the end with the

real story and see whether their predictions were right.

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2Songs from the Soul: Stories from Around the WorldAfter reading activity

Letters from the characters

Read the text below and decide which story each one is from and who wrote it.

To the teacherAim: To revise key aspects of the characters and the

plots of the stories.

Time: 40–50 minutes

Organization: Give one copy of the worksheet to each

student or each group of students. Ask them to read

each extract and decide which story the extract is from

and who wrote them. Then ask them to write similar

extracts for one of the other characters – they can give

these to other students to answer. Other possible

characters could include: Keshto from the evening train, Mam, Father or Dan from Complicity, Chai or the

kitchen-boy from the Luck of four, Chinna or a villager

from Chinna and Muthu, Bill from With sincere intent, Emeka or Emeka’s father from the strange Child, Pa or the ‘grandmother’ from treason, ‘Mervyn’

from the deceivers.

Key: The letters are from: a Bill’s wife from With sincere intent, b Samy from the Luck of four; c

Linda from the strange Child; d Karthik from the evening train; e Gbenga from the deceivers; f Kanna

from treason; g Nachiappa Gounder from Chinna and Muthu; h Emma (or Jimmy) from Complicity.

a It’s ok. Please, don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right – really.

c and when he showed me the ground,

I just looked and looked. I couldn’t speak.

d everything is going well – I’m starting to make money, but it’s a lot of work. I’ll try to come back next month.

e The guy is often in there. I

don’t know his real name, but he

comes from here – that’s for sure.

f Sometimes I secretly run to the gate and try to look for you.

h I saw him wink at her and he stared a lot, too. I

didn’t like him at all, and I was happy to come home.

i j

g of course, I needed to think quickly. everybody

was looking at me. But then I suddenly saw

something orange in the field and I had an idea.

b Life isn’t the same now. I know I have a

nice new aircon house, but I miss him a lot.