PreSchool-Grade 2—In the traditional tale of "The Magic Porridge Pot," a kind old woman teaches a young girl the magic words to utter to start and stop an enchanted pot providing food. Hendry's story is more or less the same, but the magic is not explained. Mrs. Mungo receives a pasta-making machine for her birthday and is thrilled at the prospect of making noodles. Her children prefer burgers and fries, but their mom perseveres. While they are at school, she starts up her gift, predicting, "I'll soon have oodles of noodles." It is then that the contraption suddenly begins its nonstop production. Noodles wrap around the woman's body, fill the house, and slither down the streets, all the way to the children's school. Somehow, they sense that their mother needs them and they run home just in time to find her "totally noodled.
