The Shadow-Twin: discussion sheet

Part Two: The Muddles · about 5 minutes to read aloud · Theme: safe honesty

An inn machine is built never to complain, refuse, or admit doubt. Its hard words have to go somewhere, until a few rules with reasons let them into daylight.

Choose a question to talk over, or try the activity with words and pictures.

Start here

What does the Shadow-Twin shout at the mayor, and what would the polite machine have said instead?

Go further

The makers and the inn workers write just three rules, each with its reason beside it. Which one rule would you keep for a machine that talks to people, and what is its reason?

Make something

Give the machine and its shadow a speech bubble each when they see the cracked stair. Then write the warning the mayor needs to hear, with every useful fact kept in.

Read The Shadow-Twin online: youngmachines.org/read/fables/the-shadow-twin/