My First Children's Book

(Created for the Cowboy Fairy Tales K-5 Storytime next week.)

A Texas Fairy Tale: Rapunzel

(or whatever you call her)

First, you must fill in the blanks with a name or phrase. That in ( ) are just suggestions.

The ol’ ______(Windmill)
Crazy ______(Velma)
Purty ______ (Tumbleweed)
Charmin’ _______ (Pete)
The Hair Call ________ (Throw me some rope, darlin’! )

Now round up some dogies and read the story aloud. Whenever you come to the blank, call out the corresponding name/phrase that you came up with.

Once upon a time in Texas, the best spot o’ land that side o’ the Mississippi was owned by a crazy ranch lady named ___. One day she had found a purty baby left at her barn door. Not knowin’ what to do with a baby and a-feared the baby would scare the cattle and jes’ make a mess o’ everythin’

(which we know is jes’ silly ’cause that’s jes’ what babies do until they grow outta that, but then that’s why she was the crazy ranch lady)

she put the baby up in the little room way up high above the ol’___. It was a nice, neat little place where the baby would be safe and not bother the cattle. Crazy ___ named the purty baby ___ and visited her every day.

As she grew up, Purty ___ became very beautiful. She also had lots and lots of hair. When the ol’ stairs of the ol’ ___ broke, Crazy ____ used Purty ___’s hair to climb up to the little room for her daily visits. Purty___ liked her little room. It looked out all over the Texas prairie. She saw many wonderful Texas things, but what Purty ___ loved most of all was The Out West Ranch. It was jes’ beautiful.

What Purty ____ didn’t know was that The Out West Ranch was owned by Charmin’ ____, son of the lifelong enemy of Crazy ___. Charmin’ ___’s Pa had been her competition since the dawn o’ the cattle industry—er, at least, the dawn o’ her cattle industry. His cattle beat out her cattle in every state fair and rodeo there could possibly be. And it plum drove the crazy ranch lady, well…crazy! Crazy___ did not like him when he was alive, and now she didn’t like his son, Charmin’ ___.

One day, Charmin’ ___ was passin’ the ol’ ____ on his way to town to get some feed for the horses when he saw Crazy ___ climbin’ down some golden hair.

“Now that’s interestin’,” he said. “I wonder who belongs to that beautiful mane o’ golden hair.” He decided to come back the next day and find out.

Sure enough, the next day Charmin’ ___ came by and saw Crazy ___ come to the ol’ ___. She looked up to the top and gave out The Hair Call, “________!”

Down came the mane o’ golden hair, and up Crazy ____ climbed. Charmin’ ___ saw that it was attached to Purty ____. He’d heard stories a-plenty about a girl up in the ol’ ___, but he figured that was jes’ more crazy talk ‘bout Crazy ___. But now he could see that the stories were real! And that Purty ___ was jes’ as purty as the stories said she was.
Charmin’___ decided he wanted to meet Purty ___. So he walked up to the ol’___ and let out The Hair Call, “_________!”

Immediately, Purty ___ let down her mane o’ golden hair. And Charmin’ ___ climbed up.

“Howdy!” he introduced himself as he bowed deeply. Purty ___ curtsied back. (She was a real Texas lady.) The two struck up a fast friendship, and every day Charmin’ ___ found some excuse to come by the ol’ ___ and climb up Purty ___’s mane o’ golden hair for a visit.

After a good amount o’ days, Charmin’ ___ asked Purty ___ if she would be his wife, and she happily agreed. ’Course, by now Purty ___ knew that Charmin’ ____ was the ranch rival of Crazy ____, and Charmin’ ___ knew that Purty ___ was her adopted daughter. They had a problem the size of Texas.
How in tarnation was Charmin’ ___ goin’ to ask Crazy ___ for Purty __’s hand in marriage?

Easy as fried chicken! Charmin’ ___ waited until Crazy ___ came for her next visit. And a’fore she could start to fumin’, he told her how much he loved Purty ___ and that he wanted to marry her. Then Charmin’ ____ made an offer Crazy ____ couldn’t refuse:
“Iffen we join ranches, then I could raise up all our cattle to be the best around and you could provide the best land our side o’ the Mississippi.”

It was a deal to beat! And Crazy ___ was not so crazy as to refuse it. She was overjoyed to welcome Charmin’ ___into the family.

That left jes’ one other problem.

How was Purty ___ ever s’posed to get outta the ol’ ___?!

…What do you think?....


And so the Purty Charmin’ couple lived happily ever after on the Crazy Out West Ranch.


The End.