دانلود داستان انگلیسی “توتو-چان، دختر کوچولوی کنار پنجره”

“Starting tomorrow, we’re having bananas every morning!” Daddy declared one day. He had heard somewhere that bananas were good for the body. While they are easy to come by these days, bananas were an expensive luxury when Totto was a young girl. For years after the war, children were only given the fruit if they fell ill. Totto couldn’t remember another time when she greeted one of Daddy’s declarations with such delight. Along with their gentle, charmingly curved shape, bananas are a sunny color that brings a smile to your face. Easy to peel, the fruit inside is creamy and, best of all, sweet. From that day onward, bananas appeared on the breakfast table every morning. Meals at Totto’s house, she came to understand, were slightly different from those at other households. Before the war cast a significant shadow over their lives, back when food was still plentiful, Totto’s family enjoyed mainly Western-style dishes. Breakfast always consisted of bread and coffee. Each morning, Daddy placed coffee beans inside a square wooden box and turned the metal handle around and around to grind them with a loud crrrrunch. Afterwards, the beans gave off the most wonderful aroma of coffee. As a rule, fresh-baked bread was delivered daily to their home from a bakery by Senzoku Station. Daddy’s favorite was the round French bread that was crunchy on the outside and shaped like a rotund bottom. Meat dishes were served on nights when the whole family gathered around the dinner table. Daddy loved beef most of all, so Mother seared it in a frying pan or grilled it on the stove, preparing the cuts of meat in a variety of ways so they never tired of it. Meals in most Japanese households at the time typically centered around broiled or simmered fish, but thanks to Daddy, Totto was able to relish tasty meat suppers every day. It was too bad, though, for Mother and Totto’s brother, who was younger than Totto by two years; they preferred fish.