9.27.25 - Part 1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to Realized Children's Story Hour. As a reminder,
Realize a reading service intended for people who are blinder
of other disabilities that make it difficult to read prim material.
Today we will be reading from various books on the autumn.
Your reader today is Dianne. We will begin with the
book There was an Old Lady who Swallowed some Leaves.

(00:24):
It was published by Scholastic Incorporated, Cartwill and Associate Logos
or Trademarks registered trademarks of Scholastic Incorporated. It has a
copyright ear of twenty ten and the author of the
book is Lucille con Landrou. There was no lady who
swallowed some leaves. I don't know why she swallowed those leaves.

(00:47):
Perhaps she'll sneeze. There was no lady who swallowed a shirt.
It didn't hurt to swallow that shirt. She swallowed the
shirt to fill it with leaves. I don't know why
she swallowed the leaves. Perhaps she'll snee There wasn't no
lady who swallowed a pumpkin. She wasn't a pumpkin to
swallow that pumpkin. She swallowed pumpkin to wear the shirt.

(01:09):
She swallowed the shirt to fill it with leaves. I
don't know why she swallowed the leaves. Perhaps she'll sneeze.
There was no lady who swallowed a pole. She was
on a row when she swallowed that pole. She swallowed
the poe to prop up the pumpkin. She swallowed pumpkin
to wear the shirt. She swallowed the shirt to fill
it with leaves. I don't know why she swallowed the leaves.

(01:32):
Perhaps she'll sneeze. There was no lady who swallowed some pants.
She started to dance when she swallowed the pants. She
swallowed the pants to cover the pole. She swallowed the
poe to prop up the pumpkin. She swallowed the pumpkin
to wear the shirt. She swallowed the shirt to fill
it with leaves. I don't know why she swallowed the leaves.

(01:52):
Perhaps she'll sneeze. There wasn't no lady who swallowed a rope.
She didn't mope. She swallowed that rope. She swallowed the
rope to type the pants. She swallowed the pants to
cover the pope. She swallowed the poe to prop up
the pumpkin. She swallowed the pumpkin to wear the shirt.
She swallowed the shirt to fill it with leaves. I

(02:14):
don't know why she swallowed the leaves. Perhaps she'll sneeze.
There was no lady who swallowed some hay. She didn't
say why she swallowed that hay, but she did it
with ease, and then she started to sneeze. A show,
happy fall. Our next book is hocus Pocus. It's fall,

(02:36):
and it was published by Abram's Apple Seed. It has
a copyright ear of twenty sixteen and it was written
by Anne Sibley O'Brien. Summer days begin to cool aleca zam,
it's time for school. Spiky pods are brown and dried,

(02:59):
open sesame clouds inside geese and ducks prepared to fly,
zip and zing there in the sky. Leaves on trees
are green and bright. Abra cadabra. What a sight. Chili

(03:20):
Gusts toss leaves around chizam a blanket for the ground.
Busy squirrels fill their cheeks abba zaba food for weeks.
Bens of fruit are piled high, iggly, piggly. We made
a pie, pick a pumpkin, orange and fat razzle dazzle.

(03:45):
Look at that. Chipmunks dick their burrels deep. Some salab them.
They're fast asleep put on a hat a wooly sweater
press still change. Ooh that feels better. Wrap up tight
with winter near hocus Pocus fall is here. Our next

(04:11):
book is titled Autumn Across America and it was published
by Hypering Books for Children. It has a copyright year
of nineteen ninety three and the author is Seymour Simon.

(04:32):
Autumn across America is a season of memory and change,
and early autumn the days can still be warm in summery,
tree leaves still green, insects and birds still octave. But
as the season advances, daytime grows shorter, darkness comes earlier,
and the nights grow coder Green leaves change to shades
of red and yellow, and the colors race from tree

(04:54):
to tree like flames in a forest fire. Later, the
leaves will fall from the tree trees and flutter down
to the ground in swirling drifts that crackle underfoot. Autumn
is harvest time for apples and pears, nuts and berries,
pumpkins and squash. Is the season for wild plants to
release countless seeds that will lie protected in their coats

(05:16):
during the cold months of winter and sprout when the
warmer days of spring return. Onmous, when insects lay their eggs,
squirrel store food, and birds fly south. Autumn is a
time for remembering that the seasons follow a great cycle,
and they're changing and always come back to where they were.

(05:37):
The seasons change because of the way Earth's axis is tilted,
not because it's closer to the sun and warm weather.
In fact, Earth is actually closer to the Sun when
winter begins in the northern hemisphere than it is when
summer begins. Earth spins or rotates on its axis, an
imaginary line that runs through the north and south post.

(05:58):
One spin of Earth on its axis makes one day.
The axis is tilted a little to one side and
an angle of twenty three point five degrees. For every
three hundred and sixty five times Earth spends on its axis,
it also completes one revolution around the Sun, what we
call a year. When the north poe is tilted towards

(06:19):
the Sun, the northern hemisphere has summer. At that time,
the south poe is tilted away from the Sun, so
the southern hemisphere has winter. Autumn is the season of
change from summer to winter. The official first day of
Autumn honor about September twenty third is called the autumn
autumn mental equinox. The equinox is when day and night

(06:42):
are most nearly equal and length. But the autumn season
as we think of it in America begins when leaves
and northern states begin to change color by September and October.
In the northeast along the Canadian border, desuituous trees begin
their magnificent display of color during August and September. The

(07:03):
brilliant yellows, flaming reds, and dazzling oranges sweep southward into
New England and the Middle Atlantic states as autumn progresses.
Susensuous trees are those that should their leaves at the
end of the growing season. Autumn is called fall because
of the falling leaves. The forest of birches, the aspens

(07:25):
and the poplars that cover the hills and mountains, and
the sycamores that grow along the banks of streams all
change from green to shades of yellow early in the season.
American beach brightens into luminous gold, sassafras and American mountain
ash become glowing orange. Yellows are the most common leaf colors,

(07:45):
but reds are perhaps the most brilliant. Across the valleys
and hills of New England, sugar maples become red orange
and gold sumacs turned fiery scarlet, poison ivy leaves become
a richer bronze red. By the middle of October, oaks
change from green to yellow, orange or bronze. Most often

(08:05):
in the northeast, the blazing colors are all mixed together,
as in this October view of the Catskill Mountains of
New York State. In early autumn, thousands upon thousands of
snow geese take to the air in a twenty five
hundred mile journey from their breeding grounds in the eastern
Canadian Arctic to wintering grounds in Middle Atlantic states from

(08:28):
New Jersey to North Carolina. By mid autumn, the geese
begin arriving along the Atlantic coast in flocks of several
dozen to several hundred. The greatest number arrive Invember, when
as many as one million birds may be found in
coastal salt marshes from New Jersey to Delaware. If the
weather states mild, huge flocks will remain all winter, but

(08:51):
a hard freeze will drive the birds farther south. The
snow geese mix with many other kinds of migratory water
foul including Canada blue and Brant geese, pond ducks such
as mallards, black ducks, green wind tills, pintails and wedge owns,

(09:13):
and scalps, and other diving ducks. Important to the survival
of these birds are the more than four hundred and
fifty National Wildlife Refugees located all over the United States
from Florida to Alaska. More than two dozen of these
refugees in the middle of Atlantic States offer safe nesting

(09:34):
and feeding grounds in heavily populated areas. Without these refugees,
it would be difficult for huge flocks of birds, such
as the snow geese along the Jersey Shore, to survive
their annual southern migration. Across the Midwest, there seem to
be as many insects in early autumn as there are

(09:54):
during the height of summer. Clusters of flies and nants
dance in the sunlight, Crickets narronade the night, and cicadas
take up the insect course during the day. But as
the days become shorter and cooler, insects gradually begin to disappear. Beetles, termites,
and other ground dwelling insects migrate not north to south

(10:15):
like birds, but up to down. They go from above
ground to protective places beneath logs and rocks, or they
burrow deep within the soil. Water dwelling insects migrate from
above the water to below it, or they travel from
shallow to deep water. For many other insects, getting ready
for winter means entering a different life stage. Some, such

(10:38):
as the prae mantis, lay their eggs in a protective
egg case and then die. The eggs stay the winter
and hatch in the spring. The wooly bear caterpillar is
the larval stage of a tiger moth. In autumn, it
spends a protective cocoon of silk and attaches itself to
a twigger leaf. Inside the cocoon, the larval catap pillar

(11:00):
becomes a poopa. The pupa is motionless, but its body
tissues are changing, and in the spring it will emerge
as an adult moth. Autumn is the season when plants
produce and scater seeds. Far afield seeds are life packages
to future generations. They contain an embryo or young plant,

(11:22):
and a supply of food. Most seeds are also enclosed
in predictive coat that safeguards them during the harsh winter
weather so they can sprout in the spring. Seeds are travelers.
Some are hitchhikers and are covered by birds that stick
to clothing and the fur of animals that brush against them.
These seeds have descriptive names such as stick tights, beggar ticks, catchweed,

(11:46):
and grip grass. Other seeds are found in pulpy fruits
such as cherries and blueberries. The fruits are eaten by birds, squirrels,
and other animals, and then the seeds are avoided in
distant places. Still, other seeds are shot from ripening seed pods,
such as jewelweed or drop grolling to the ground like
winged maple or elm seeds, but the purpose. The most

(12:08):
beautiful autumn seeds come from the common milkweed plants that
grow in open metals and vacant lots. Within a milkweed
pod a rows of golden brown seeds, each with a
tuft of silken threads. When a pod splits open in October,
only a few seeds at a time are released. Their
silken parachutes catch the fenous breeze and they sail off

(12:29):
to unknown destinations. Autumn is not only time for scattering,
but also the traditional time when farmers gather their crops
corn and wheat, grapes and pears. Vegetables in US and
even fall flowers are harvested in abundance across the country.
A dozen different kinds of apples with names such as

(12:50):
red Delicious, Macintosh, grainny Smith, and Northern spy are regularly
harvested in apple orchards across the country. First full moon
after the autumnal equinox is called the harvest moon. When
the harvest moon rises, it moves in an angle close
to the horizon, behind the dark shadows of trees, hills,

(13:12):
and buildings. Compared to these familiar shapes, the harvest moon
looks enormous Because of pollen and other dust particles in
the air. The moon often takes on stringed shades of
orange and red and resembles a huge pumpkin in the sky.
Of all the American harvests, pumpkins may be the one
plant most associated with autumn. These brightly colored gords grow

(13:35):
on plant vines that stretch along the ground for thirty feet.
Giant pumpkins may weigh as much as two hundred pounds each.
Of course, we eat pumpkin pie and pumpkin seeds, but
we also make jockal lanners from pumpkins, and without those
funny lighted orange faces, how could we have Halloween all
across the Midwest and along the country. Rowing Upper Michigan

(13:57):
leaves fall to the ground in late October in early November.
Leaf color varies a great deal from place to place
in year to year. Within a grove of trees, one
or two may show much brighter colors than the rest,
whereas other trees simply go brown. Droughts and insect damage
can result in a poor leaf display in the autumn.

(14:20):
An unusual warm October is also bad for color, since
each night the trees use most of the sugar produced
in their leaves, so not enough sugar is left for
color to develop. Frost is mainly responsible for freeing the
leaves from the trees. On a cold night, ice crystals
form and break the woody fibers that hold the leaf
to the twig. Then, when the ice melts in the

(14:42):
early morning sun, the leaves whirl to the ground in
a shower of red, yellows and browns. On the ground,
the colorful pigments break down and all the leaves turn
in ontamental brown, but the fallen leaves are not wasting.
In nature, they provide food and shelter for a host
of insects and other small animals. They also provide food

(15:04):
for mushrooms and other fungi that lack chlorophyll and cannot
make their own food. Finally, the leaves decay and their
minerals return to the soil, helping to make it more
fertile for future plant generations. In late autumn, many animals
live in and about the hot springs and geysers found
in yellow National Yellowstone National Park. Even the COLDUS weather, insects, snails,

(15:29):
and fish remain active in the warm rivers and streams
in Yellowstone. Birds, elk, moose, spear, and bison also gather
near the warm waters as autumn gross Coder. Yellowstone has
about two hundred active geysers. The park sits atop a
huge collapsed volcano that still provides underground heat. A geyser
erupts when its reservoir of trapped water is heated above

(15:52):
the boiling point and suddenly turns to steam, ejecting hot
water and steam through a vent to the surface. A
complete geyser cycle may take minutes, hours, days, or even years.
At one time, millions of bison migrated south across the
American plains every autumn. Native Americans ate their meat and

(16:14):
used their hides to make clothing and teepees. The bison
was also important in their rituals and religious beliefs, but
the settlers who moved west viewed the bison as a nuisance.
They killed them in huge numbers, and by eighteen ninety
only a few hundred bison were left. Several years later,
bison were protected by the federal government. Nowadays, thousands of

(16:36):
bisons lived in preserves and ranches, and several herds live
in the yellow Stone National Park. If red and yellow
are the main colors of autumn and the east, then
yellow and dark green are the main colors of autumn
and the mountains and hills of the West. On mountains
and hillsides, you often see a grove of bright yellow

(16:57):
quaking acidens cutting through a forested dark green spruce and
fur trees like a slash of gold and white. Quaking
aspens get their name from their oval leaves that shake
even in gentle breezes. Aspens belong to a family of
deciduous trees called poplars. Poplars are found throughout most of America. Spruce,
fur pine, hemlock, cedar, and juniper are all members of

(17:21):
a group of non flowering trees called conifers. These trees
are caught on all across America, but are partricularly common
in the mountains and foothills of the Rockies. Conifers are
sometimes called evergreens because they do not drop their leaves
during any particular season. Conifers have narrow leaves called needles

(17:41):
that expose a far smaller surface than do leaves of
broad leaf trees. Less surface area, along with a waxy
coating on their needles, helps reduce conifer water loss in winter.
Because conifers keep their leaves year round, they remain active
and grow as soon as there is enough light when
the temperature becomes warm enough, typically in the low fifties.

(18:05):
Every autumn, beginning October and lasting until December, three thousand
or more, bald eagles gather in small groups along several
miles of the Chilcat River in the Alaska Chilcat Bald
Eagle Preserved This is the largest known gathering of bald
eagles anywhere in the world. The attraction for the eagles's food.
An autumn run of ten pounds salmon swim up the

(18:27):
river to spawn and die is the last salmon run
of the season, and eagles flock to the river from
hundreds of miles around. Warm upwelling water keeps part of
the Chilcat from freezing until late in the season. Eagles
wading into the water stabbed sharp talons into dead or
dying salmon and drag them into the land to feast

(18:49):
on the rich meat. Bald eagles can dive at one
hundred miles per hour and spot a fish in a
river from a mile away. This majestic bird became the
national symbol for the U States in seventeen eighty two.
At one time, bald eagles were common all across North America.
Now they are on the endangered Specie list in forty

(19:09):
three of the lower forty eight states because of pesticides,
illegal shooting, and habitat destruction. All the more reason that
in nineteen eighty two, Alaska declared a forty eight thousand
aggre stretch of the Chilcat River in its surroundings a
permanent preserve for the birds. On the western side of

(19:35):
the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. Late autumn is a
season of heavy rains, rising from sea level to as
high as eight thousand feet. The Olympics present a giant
rock barrier against moisture ladin winds off the ocean. The
sea winds rush up the mountain slopes cool suddenly and
drop their moisture as rain. At this time of the year,

(19:58):
the rain can last for days and the mid never
let up. About one hundred and forty five inches of
rainfall every year, roughly two billion gallons of water for
each square mile of land, more rainfall than any other
place in America. Yet only forty miles to the west
on the other side of the mountains is the driest
region north of southern California, with a yearly rainfall less

(20:20):
than seventeen inches. Towering Douglas firs, sic spruces, and western
hemlocks draped with shaggy mosses and green ferns grow near
one another. In the valleys of the Western Olympics. A
green carpet interweaved with dozens of different kinds of mosses
cover the ground. Small trees grow atop nurse logs, fallen

(20:41):
trees that decay increase soil beds in which ceilings take root.
Vine and big leaf maples turn red and yellow and
drop their leaves in the autumn, but the rainforest of
mostly conifer trees remains green and wet. Similar temperate rainforests
grow on the Pacific coast from Alaska to California, but
the Olympic grain Forest is the largest in North America.

(21:05):
All across America, monarch butterflies begin their autumn migrations when
temperatures begin to drop. The black and orange insects wing
their way south across the beaches of the East Coast,
over the Appalachians, along the flat farm lands of the Midwest,
and even across the Great deserts of the Southwest. The
Marne arc is a good flyer, moving from ten to

(21:27):
fifteen miles per hour, traveling eighty miles or more in
a day. Some mon arcs migrate as far as eight
hundred eighteen hundred miles from north to south. They will
spend the winter in large groups in gathering spots in Florida, Texas,
and California. Pacific Grove at the southern end of Monterey

(21:48):
Bay in California, the monarchs begin arriving in huge numbers
in mid October. They cluster together on trunks and large branches.
By the thousands and tens of thousands things folded. Most
of butterflies hang motionless, packed closely together, looking like clumps
of gray brown leaves. The monarchs stay about five months.

(22:10):
In March, the surviving adults, along with some of their
offspring born in the surrounding area, will migrate back to
northern breeding areas. Autumn comes to an official inn on
or about December twenty first, the first day of winter
in the northern Hemisphere, but in the Northeast and Midwest,
autumn really seems to end in late November or early December,

(22:33):
when the piles of fallen leaves are already covered by
morning frost and ponds are beginning to freeze. Over on
the high mountains of the Western States, autumn ends even earlier,
with October snowfalls such as this one that doest bridal
veil fall in Yosemite National Park. Autumn is when leaves
change color and fall, Birds and insects migrate to warmer places.

(22:58):
Animals and plants prepare in different for the coming winter,
and summer. Crops are harvested from day to day, in
place to place across America. Autumn is the season of
the years, passing from the heat of green and gold
in summer days to the cold of silvery and frosty
winter nights. Our next story is called Winter in the

(23:18):
Fall and it was published by The Child's World. It
has copyright year of twenty seventeen and the author is
Jenna Lee Glissner. Cool Weather. It is a fall morning.
It is chilly. Fall weather is often cloudy and windy.

(23:39):
Fall comes after the warm summer temperatures drop. It gets
cold enough for frost. Frost forms on grass. Fall changes.
Cool weather changes plants. They stop growing. Leaves fall from trees,
Wind blows the leaves around. Animalst fill it gets colder.

(24:00):
Some grow more fur warmer clothes. People fill it get colder.
In fall two they wear jackets, They wear hats and mittens.
Fall weather gets colder and colder. Soon winter will be here.
Our next book is titled Autumn an Alphabet Acrosstic and

(24:21):
it was published by Clarion Books, a Hooton Mifflin Company
in print has a copyright ear of nineteen ninety seven
and it was written by Steve Shamner. Acorn. A single
seed can feed a squirrel or grow into a giant
oak that rains down new nuts. Every autumn. Barn bats

(24:44):
and owls roostom and empty nests corn come October, only
the harvested stalks remain in the fields. As the knights
turned frosty, dark day ins early and night lingers. A
cold rainfalls. As we kindle the fireplace, earth, every plant, animal,
and rock. The air itself turned slowly under heaven frost.

(25:10):
From the window, the rows of orange pumpkins, seen clothed
in thin white shawls. Guest gloves and coats hang under
the stairs. Some even lie upon the bed. So many
friends have come this cold and snowy Thanksgiving day. Horse
high on a windy heel, the rowing stallion snortss he

(25:32):
eyes the coming storm. Icicle in the north. Cones of
ice clean like whiskers to the eaves. Jam jars of
freshly made apple sauce, jelly and marmalades sit gleaming on
the kitchen shelf. Knit keeping hands busy, the needles quick
and inch by inch. A thick wool shawl appears, leaves.

(25:54):
Little remains on each maple, oak and aspen tree. Even
the grapevines have shriveled, ending another green season. Mouse moving
quickly over the bread boards and under the toaster, the
intruder stuffs both cheeks with crumbs to eat later, hiding
in the wall. North Now, cold winds come down out

(26:14):
of Canada, and rain turns to hail and then to snow.
Owl on sky, dark wings, the hunter needs no light
to find its prey. Pumpkin piled up in the market square,
baskets of pears, bushels of apples, kegs of cider, and
orange mountain in November's code quiet quilt slight heaped upon

(26:37):
the beds this icy evening to keep us warm, ripe
red apples and bushel baskets and the cellar soon to
become pies or apple sauce or shine and eaten on
the way to school Snow stillness now over all the
cold white world. Train the distant rumble of wheels in
the mournful wail of a whistle in the night universe.

(27:01):
Up beyond the nice sky and indigo darkness like velvet
embraces the farthest reaches of the mine. Sun, moon stars,
everything Village Venus glows brightly in the western sky beyond
the lights and laughter, and the busy going to and
fro of everyone in town. White winters almost here in
just in time, there's snow everywhere x the twelfth month

(27:27):
of the year, when the last leave has fallen, and
every plants tim withers or rest until May year. Yesterday,
December ended. Today more than just another month begins. Rejoice
zero z. Everyone is resting outside. It's freezing. This concludes

(27:49):
our children's story I have for today. Please join us
next time as we were reading more stories, fables and
fairy tales. Thank you for listening, and please stay tuned
for the Lex and Hero Leader on Radio I