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The Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water

A tale from The Arabian Nights, retold by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith

This story comes from The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales, a collection edited by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith in the early twentieth century. It tells of three royal children separated at birth, raised in ignorance of their true identity, and reunited through courage and a quest for three magical treasures. Like many tales from The Arabian Nights, it explores themes of jealousy, justice, perseverance, and the restoration of truth. The story rewards bravery tempered by wisdom, and shows that even the most terrible wrongs can be set right. This text reflects its era; a few period terms have been modernised.

Band

Green · Independent readers, earlyTypical starting range: ages 9–11

Length

long · about 887 words in 6 sections · 3 pictures

Source

The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales, Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, Nora Archibald Smith and Maxfield Parrish

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (10 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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