A Tale From the Trunk

About the Book

At a second meeting arranged by a fly, bee, hare, bear, mouse and deer homonyms and pronunciation of the English language are the main topic of a lengthy discussion. The sun and alittle elephant are observers listening to the discussion. Each animal gives their opinion about the situation and presents a number of problems andconclusions. The elephant is having a lot of thoughts about everything himself. In the end he comes to very wise decisions while the sun, who has been the other observer, is very happy with the ending. They both feel great about this most unusual day. The fly thinks that a list of references about English homonyms would be very helpful to everyone for pronunciation and spelling. She creates 130 samples to refer to and encourages English studying students to search for more on the internet. These samples are translated into four different languages: French, German, Italian and Spanish plus lists of pages for languages not covered.

About the Author

Anna-Luise Neher was born in Germany. In 1949, when she was 17, she was an exchange student in America. A speech therapist practiced English pronunciation with her. When the therapist suggested that she put out her tongue and then pull it back in to get the right sound for the “th,” she thought this was extremely rude. Long lists of words had to be spoken out loud and practiced during the week and were corrected at the next session. Ever since then she has wanted to write about English pronunciation and spelling. Ms. Neher graduated from the Pestalozzi-Fröbel Haus in Berlin and was a kindergarten teacher for four years. Since 1959 she has lived in America and worked as a secretary in different parts of the country. She has also been very active in Toastmasters International and has presented many short stories achieving the ATM in Gold. The animals and the sun used in the book are photographs of the finger-puppets designed and used by Ms. Neher when presenting the original story of “A Tale from the Trunk” as a little play.