Donald Quixote - NO AUDIO
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by Frank Wiley illustrated by Bradley Clark
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Donald
Quixote
by Frank Wiley illustrated by Bradley Clark
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
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Printed in China
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-02587-2
ISBN-10: 0-547-02587-4
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Sandra loves having her cousin Donald come to visit.
Sandra stood outside her parents’ garage. She heard clanging and banging coming from behind the closed door. The noises were making her curious. What was her cousin doing in there? 
Last week, when her mother had announced
that her cousin Donald was coming to visit, Sandra was thrilled. Donald was an art student and one of the most creative people she knew. He always had some unusual plan in mind or stories to tell.
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Some people would say Donald was eccentric because he did things that were out of the ordinary. Sandra knew that as an artist, Donald just had his own way of seeing things.
Now, Sandra remembered details from Donald’s last visit. A few days after he had arrived, he decided that their street needed more color. So, he got paint from the garage and painted a mural on their fence. The fence had been plain brown. Donald turned it into a colorful painting
of ocean life.
On his last visit, Donald improved the fence.
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Sandra thought the whale and the fish looked pretty. But her parents disagreed. After Donald left, they painted the fence brown again. This time, Sandra had a plan that she hoped her creative cousin would enjoy.
Sandra loved books. When she was reading, time seemed to fly. She especially liked adventure stories about the past. So Sandra got a stack of adventure books from the library. There were enough for a week. She hoped Donald would illustrate one of the stories, or even help her to act out one of the adventures.
Sandra and Donald both love to read adventure books.
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Don Quixote and Sancho Panza prepare to attack a windmill.
One of the books was about Don Quixote. Don Quixote was a fictional character. He was an old man who loved to read stories about noble knights. He read many books about the knights’ exploits. In fact, Don Quixote read so many stories about fighting giants and rescuing maidens that he started to think he was a knight himself. Don Quixote put together some homemade armor. He climbed on an old horse called Rocinante (roh see NAHN teh). Then he and his neighbor, Sancho Panza, set off on a quest for adventure. They got into all sorts of trouble.
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Sandra and Donald are ready for adventure.
“This is a terrific book,” said Sandra. She marched across the room waving a rolled-up newspaper like a sword. “I wish my life were less boring. It would be awesome to be a knight.”
She swung her “sword” at an imaginary enemy. “Take that!” she cried.
“If you’re bored, let’s do something about it,” Donald suggested. “Wait here while I put on my anti-boredom disguise.”
Moments later, Donald disappeared into the garage. Sandra waited outside. That’s where she was now, trying to guess what her cousin was up to.
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Sandra paced up and down, wondering what kind of adventure Donald had in mind. At last, the garage door rolled open. There stood “Donald Quixote.”
He had made a suit of armor from things Sandra’s mom had set aside for a yard sale. Foil covered the shoulder pads of an old football uniform. On his chest was an antique washboard. On his head was a football helmet covered with foil. A feather duster stuck up from the top.
Donald surprises Sandra.
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Sandra laughed when she saw Donald’s “horse.” The head was from a discarded toy horse. Donald had stuck the toy head on the front of her dad’s old mountain bike. The horse’s tail was a fuzzy pink scarf. Sandra used to wear it for dress-up.
Donald smiled at Sandra and bowed low. “Ahh… my faithful squire, Sandra Panza,” he said. 
She corrected him. “My last name’s Peters!”
“Close enough!” crowed Donald. He hopped on the bike. “Our quest begins!”
Sandra grabbed her helmet and bike from the garage and rode after him. They both pedaled off down the street.
“Um… Exactly what kind of quest are we on?” Sandra asked, working hard to keep up with “Donald Quixote.”
Donald and Sandra ride off on their first quest.
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“Good question,” said Donald. “We will know it when we see it.”
They passed houses and mini-malls. They passed gas stations and record shops. The street was full of cars, so they had to be very careful.
“When I was little, this was all farms and woods,” said Donald. “I used to go fishing on the pond behind that video store. This whole area was really pretty then.”
Suddenly, he came to a halt.
“Aha! I have found our first quest,” he announced triumphantly.
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