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This switcher only changes the instructions — the reading is always in English.
In bold: key vocabulary. Tap any word in the text to see its definition.
Pinocchio returned to the little white house, but the fairy was not there. A sign on the door said that she was sick and sad, because her puppet had gone away. When the fairy finally appeared, she forgave him. "If you go to school every day and obey me, you will become a real boy," she said. Pinocchio promised, and for a few weeks, he was the best student in the class.
But there was a boy in his class named Candlewick, who was as thin as a candle, and who never studied. "I know a place where there are no schools, no teachers, and no books," he whispered one day. "It's called the Land of Toys. You play all day, and you never do any work. Come with me tonight." Pinocchio hesitated, then said yes.
At midnight, a cart pulled by twenty-four donkeys came to pick them up, and it was full of happy boys. The coachman was a little fat man with a voice as soft as butter. The trip lasted all night, and at dawn, they arrived in a city where there were games in every street, and nobody said the word "homework."
For five months, Pinocchio and Candlewick played from morning to night. They ran, they shouted, and they threw things at each other. They ate sweets until they felt ill. Pinocchio never opened a book. "Why did I ever want to study?" he said. "This is the real life!" And the months passed without anybody counting them.
One morning, Pinocchio woke up and scratched his head. His ears felt strange. He went to the mirror, and he nearly fainted: his ears had grown twice as long, and they were covered with gray fur. "Candlewick, look!" he said. But Candlewick had the same ears, and he was laughing through his tears.
They tried to say something to each other, but they could not. Instead of words, there was a sound like a big "Hee-haw!" Their hands became hooves, their backs got round, and their clothes fell off. Within a minute, they were no longer two boys. They were two donkeys, standing in a small room, with tears running down their long gray faces.
