The Wond'rous Wise Man

A story retold from Mother Goose in Prose, by L. Frank Baum

This story comes from Mother Goose in Prose (1897) by L. Frank Baum, the author who later wrote The Wizard of Oz. Baum took a nursery rhyme about a foolish man jumping into bramble bushes and spun it into a full tall tale about Solomon, who asks silly questions but is hailed as wise. The humour lies in the townspeople's mistake: Solomon is not wise at all, but no one realizes it. This reader shows young children how stories can be playful, and that even grown-ups in stories can be wrong.

Band

Purple · Pre-readers and first readers, about 4 to 5

Length

short · about 354 words in 5 sections · 4 pictures

Source

Mother Goose in Prose, L. Frank Baum · Project Gutenberg

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 (6 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Colouring page

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.