WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Hi, Rebecca Shear here.

If you're listening to this episode, the week it comes out, then you might know that

Eric Shimlowness and I are on the road as we bring

Circle Round and the Circle Round books to Cleveland, Ohio and Austin, Texas. We'll be back with

the first of our live Cleveland episodes next week. In the meantime, enjoy the special

encore edition of Circle Round. A fun and funny tale you may have missed the first time around.

Think about a time you used teamwork. You did one part of a task, somebody else did the other,

and by working together by collaborating, you shared in your success. We're about to meet a team

that works so well together. It's magic.

I'm Rebecca Shear and welcome to Circle Round, where story time happens all the time.

Today our story is called The Laughing Canoe.

It's inspired by tales told in Brazil, the largest country in South America and Latin America.

Some really great people came together to bring you our adaptation of this folktale, including George Salazar, from NBC's Superstore and the Broadway production of Be More Chill.

So circle around, everyone, for the laughing canoe.

There once was a fisherman. Each and every morning, with a fishing pole and two baskets,

the fisherman made his way to the wide, winding river, where his hand-carved wooden canoe waded on the riverbank. The fisherman pushed off from shore, paddled to the middle of the river,

then baited his hook and cast his line. After that, he waited. The moment he felt a tug,

he rolled his line in, then proudly unhooked a wiggling, wriggling bass or catfish, and tossed it into

one of his baskets.

This he would do again and again, until both baskets were brimming with flipping flopping fish.

Then he would paddle the canoe back to shore and take his catch to market,

...