Granddaughter's Sled

Granddaughter's Sled is a story from Russia that teaches how important it is to respect elderly people and the wisdom they have. In the story old people are brought to the forest to die since they are seen as useless but one old man is saved from this fate and hidden away. After a famine sweeps over the town they run out of food and are bound to starve, but the old man tells them how to grow more food and they all survive. After this the old man and all other elderly people are respected. The elderly have a lot of experience with different situations and have lived through a lot of trouble, and obviously survived so they must know how to overcome difficult times. If we sent old people off to the forest to die then we would miss out on a lot of wisdom and our history would be a lot different. Elderly tell us stories of what has happened in the past so that we can learn from their mistakes and improve the present and the future, and first hand accounts are always more accurate. I liked this story because it reminds the reader that even though old people may appear frail and weak they possess some much more wisdom from experience than we could ever have. The elderly play a big part in how our world goes on.