Storytelling Week 13: Runaway

Once upon a time, there lived a princess whose lifelong dream was to marry a true prince.  She had dated many princes but none of them were exactly what she was looking for. She wasn’t going to settle for she was a young and beautiful princess who was from the richest family and lived in the biggest castle in all the land. 

The princess had long brown hair and big blue eyes and wore the most beautiful cream dress with lace all over it.  Sometimes, she would braid her hair to one side and other times, she would leave it in perfect curls. 

On a Wednesday afternoon, her parents set up her with a prince they knew she would love.  He was beautiful.  He had luscious brown hair with brown eyes and just a little bit of scruff.  He wasn’t typical of a prince but he was everything the princess was looking for, at least in her parents eyes. 

The prince took the princess out to brunch and they talked for hours and hours.  The prince knew immediately that he loved her and wanted to be with her forever but the princess didn’t feel the same way.  Though she enjoyed his company and thought he was a very kind man, she didn’t feel the spark.  After the date, she told her parents she wasn’t sure about him and they were extremely disappointed. 

“Give him another chance,” her parents said.  “You will go out with him again and you will learn to love him.”

The princess didn’t want to but she had to follow her parents’ wishes so she went out with him once again. 

She wasn’t in the best mood on their date because she didn’t want to be there in the first place.  She played along and was the sweet princess everyone thought she was until she saw something out of the corner of her eye. 

Contrary to everything her parents would ever want for her, the princess saw a man and knew it was love at first sight.

He was a regular guy and was nothing fancy.  He wasn’t a prince and certainly wasn’t deserving of a princess but at this point, she didn’t care.  She wanted to be with him. 

She left the prince at the table and immediately approached the stranger.  They looked each other in the eyes and he knew it was love at first sight. 

The princess left with this new love of hers and took him straight to her parents.  She told them, “Mom, Dad, I couldn’t go through with the prince you set up for me but I have found someone else and we are in love.”

“Nonsense! You can’t be with this man for he isn’t even a prince!” they said.

The princess was angry at her parents but she didn’t care.  She knew what she wanted and she acted on it. 

The princess and her new love ran off together and never looked back.  That same day, they were wed.  

Castle

Author's Note: This story was based off of the original story, Princess and Pea.  In the original story, a prince was looking for a true princess and in order to test her, a pea was placed underneath twenty mattresses to see if she could feel it and indeed, she could.  He found himself a true princess.  I wanted to switch my story and have a princess try to find a worthy prince but it turns out that a prince wasn't what she wanted after all.  She wanted a regular man, not someone her parents set her up with. The story I wrote was short, sweet, and to the point because sometimes love is complicated but not for these two.  I mainly used the first paragraph of the original story to tell mine and left out all of the stuff about the testing of a true princess or, in my case, a prince.  Plus, it is possible for a princess to be with someone who isn't a prince and vice versa.  I wanted my last story to be fun and uplifting and thought adding this to my portfolio would do just that.  

Andersen Fairy Tales unit. Story source: Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paull (1872).

Gen. Ed. Review

I am pretty sure I am taking this course as a general education western culture.  For the most part, I did not enjoy my gen ed courses here at OU.  It’s hard to remain interested in courses that don’t have any relation to your major so I didn’t think they were that great.  I did like that for my major, I had to declare a minor so that took up a good amount of my gen ed courses that I was required to take and I really enjoyed those courses. 

I waited until my last semester in school to take my gen ed math course because math is my least favorite subject but I am actually enjoying that course more than I thought I would.  I think that in general, we take a significant amount of gen ed courses and I would like to take more classes within my major or even my minor but with all the rules, too many credits from inside your major won’t count and that is kind of frustrating. 

I do think that it’s important to get a wide variety of courses in college because we should be well rounded and have a broad knowledge base.  Even though I didn’t enjoy all the classes I took, I’m still glad I took most of them so that I have a little bit better understanding of whatever subject it may be.  

knowledge

College Writing Review

Being a journalism major, writing is a huge part of what I do every day.  Even though the writing I do in this course isn’t quite the same as the writing I do in journalism, I think that any writing course I take is beneficial to me in the long run.  One of my first semesters here I took expository writing, what is work.  It was the most writing intense class that I’ve ever taken and it really helped me become a better and well-rounded writer. 

I think that this class taught me a lot about how to write more narrative based stories or novel based stories.  I’m so used to writing news stories that have to be very structured and this course allowed me to be a little bit more creative and explore some different aspects of writing that I don’t get to explore that often. 

I think that it’s important for people to take writing courses in college even if writing isn’t their strong point because it’s not something that you’ll be able to avoid in life.  You’ll always have to write and it’s important to know how to do it and what makes a good story. 

I’m fortunate that we were able to read so many other students’ blogs because it helped me develop my own writing a little bit better.  I really enjoyed this course and the writing aspects that went along with it!

Writing

Reading Diary A: Grimm Unit

This week I decided to read stories from the Brothers Grimm LibriVox unit.  One of the stories from the first half of the unit that I really enjoyed was Rapunzel.  Though I have never actually read the story until now, I knew of its general plot and storyline so it was nice to get a chance to finally read it.  My favorite part of the story was when Rapunzel let her hair down. 

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.”

I thought the use of adjectives to describe Rapunzel’s hair was excellent and really allowed me to imagine what that looked like. 

Another story that I enjoyed from the unit was The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean.  I thought the story was different from some of the others in this unit which I appreciated.  It made me laugh that the inanimate objects like the bean and the coal and the straw could all talk and were appreciate that they escaped their death of burning in the fire of losing their skin and being made into broth. 

Overall, I thought this unit was full of fun and quirky stories and I really enjoyed them.  It seemed like some of the stories were a bit random and didn’t fit together like some of the other stories in the European units but I kind of like it that way.  

Disney's Rapunzel

Portfolio

Here you can find a few of my favorite stories so far.  Feel free to comment and leave suggestions! 

Storytelling Week 13: Runaway

Storytelling Week 11: The Mystery of the Poptart

Storytelling Week 6: The Game 

Storytelling Week 5: The Tree

Reading Diary B: Andersen Unit

 I really loved part one of the Little Mermaid story.  The word choice and language in these stories is so fun and vibrant and really descriptive.  I also like how positive and bright the story is at the beginning.  The descriptions of the scenery made it really easy to imagine what the sea must have looked like and the types of creatures and nature you would see under the sea like the flowers being as red as the sunset and the marble statue that was carved out of white stone and the blue sands. 

One of my favorite parts of the second story was the paragraph about the large ship.  It was easy to imagine what was going on and even easier to imagine the young prince.  He was described as the most beautiful of all, with large black eyes and sixteen years old. 

Even though this story was turned into a Disney movie, the writing is very mature.  I think that sometimes people underestimate the writing of a children’s story because of the content, not because of the actual writing itself. 

I think if I were to retell this story I would focus on the first one and include even more detail about what under the sea looked like.  It would be interesting to use the kind of descriptions the author used in these stories and make it a little darker instead.  Though I usually don’t like to turn my stories darker than the original, I think it would make for an interesting story and the way the scenery would be described would be really different. 

Overall, I really liked the Little Mermaid and the entire unit as a whole.  The story was just how I imagined and remembered from the movie as a little kid.  I had never read the stories until now; I had only seen the movie.  I’m glad I was able to know the story from the writing, not just the movie.  

The Little Mermaid 

Reading Diary A: Andersen Fairy Tales Unit

I thought the plot of the first story, Princess and Pea, was pretty interesting.  I liked how the Prince was trying to decipher whether the princesses he came across were real princesses or not.  He finally realized she was a real princess after she slept on top of twenty mattresses with a single pea on the very bottom and said that she slept poorly because she could feel something hard.  They concluded that only a real princess would be that sensitive and would be able to feel a pea under all those mattresses.  I thought the ending was a little strange though how they put the pea in a museum.  It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story but I still liked it overall. 

Another story I liked was The Emperor’s New Suit.  I think that I might try and retell this story for the storytelling post this week.  I particularly like the beginning of the story which is about an emperor who spent all of his money on clothes because his only ambition in life was to be well dressed.  I think it might be fun to retell this story from a woman’s point of view and also maybe from a college girl’s point of view because I personally know a lot of people who spend all of their money on clothes even when they have other things they need to be taking care of instead. 

I am looking forward to reading the story of the Little Mermaid tomorrow and depending on how well I like the story, I might consider retelling some parts of the original for my storytelling post this week instead of retelling the Emperor’s New Suit.  

Princess and Pea

Storytelling Week 11: The Mystery of the Poptart

The bus just dropped my brother and me off after school and we both ran, heading towards our house. 

We couldn’t be more excited to get home because there was a special surprise waiting for us when we got there.  Before we left for school this morning, we had our normal breakfast that consisted of toast and eggs but Mom told us that when we got home, we could have a snack and we were very excited for that since this wasn't a common occurrence.  The snack we both wanted so badly was the most delicious blueberry poptart with icing and sprinkles.  We had seen it in the pantry but knew it was off limits and we could only eat it on special occasions.  That’s why we were so surprised Mom said we could have it because it wasn’t a special occasion at all.  It was just a regular Tuesday. 

Finally we got to the house and ran inside to the kitchen where Mom was waiting for us.  When we saw her, though, she had this sad look in her eyes. 

“Boys, I’m sorry to tell you but the poptart is gone,” she said.

Shocked, my brother and I looked at each other.  “What happened to it, Mom? We didn’t eat it!”

“I don’t know what happened to it.  It was here when I left for work this morning and gone when I got home.  I’m sorry, boys, I don’t know what to tell you.”

I was particularly puzzled because I knew that I didn’t eat the poptart and there’s no way my brother could have eaten it either because we were both at school today.  But then I started thinking, who could have eaten it?  I was at school, my brother was at school, my mom was at work, and my sister was at school too. 

I was going to get to the bottom of this.

I ran up to my sister’s room and busted open the door yelling, “Megan! Did you eat the last poptart? We can’t find it and someone had to have eaten it!” 

“I didn’t eat your stupid poptart. I don’t even like them anyways.  Get out of my room!” she yelled.

I didn’t believe her!  She loves poptarts!  I’ve seen her eat them all the time.  I knew she had to be lying to me.

Back into the kitchen I went, calling for my mom on the way. 

“Megan said she didn’t eat the poptart but no one else could have done it and Megan was the first one home from school today.  It had to be her.”

“Son, there’s nothing we can do about it now.  The poptart is gone.  I’ll get you two something else tomorrow,” She said.

My brother and I were disappointed and weren’t willing to give up hope of finding out who ate our poptart. 

I decided to check, before I went back up to my sister's room, to see if the poptart could possibly be in the pantry somewhere. 

I went over and opened up the pantry and lifted nearly every box and can to see if it was hiding underneath something and nope, nothing. 

But then, there it was.  I saw it.  Its shiny silver package was peeking through the cracks of all the boxes in the back.  It must have fallen from the top shelf and become lodged in the back!  I couldn’t be more excited! 

My brother watched the whole thing and was equally as excited for the find as I was.  I brought the poptart over to the table and opened the package, giving my brother half and half to myself.  We sat there and savored every bite.  It just might have been the best thing I’ve ever eaten. 

Blueberry Poptart

Author’s Note: I based this story off of the original story, Who Stole the Tarts?  in the Alice in Wonderland unit.  I chose to retell a story from this unit because it contains some of my favorite childhood stories and I thought they were all so fun as a kid and still do now.  In the original story, the characters stood before a judge and pleaded their case as to why they weren’t guilty of stealing the tarts.  I mostly gathered my idea for this new spin on the story from the title of the original story, Who Stole the Tarts? which reminded me of poptarts for some reason.  Maybe I’m hungry.  Anyways, I decided to keep certain aspects of the original in mine like a hunt to find out what happened to the tarts and question all those involved.  I decided to have the poptart be hidden the whole time because that happens often to me with food and things in general.  I had similar experiences as a kid when I thought I lost something and it was there all along.  Typically, though, my mom was the one who always found it so I switched it up a bit in this story and had the boys find it instead.  

Reading Diary B: Looking Glass Unit

One of the stories I really liked from Looking Glass was Queen Alice.  I always liked the back and forth between the Red Queen and the White Queen.  Throughout these stories, both the queens are hard of Alice and ask her tons of questions that they queens inevitably tend to answer for her.  Like the other stories I’ve read, I really like some of the language used in these stories.  My favorite story in this three part series was the third one because the Frog is introduced and he’s one of my favorite characters.  I thought that the author did a really good job of describing the Frog and that helped me picture him without seeing an actual image.  I should try and incorporate some more descriptions in my stories so that my readers feel like they can imagine my characters without images too. 

I also really like the story Shaking and Walking.  The way the story was set up made the reading easy and helped guide the reader smoothly through the story.  I particularly like the beginning of the story when the White Queen is telling Alice about the fish and how it must be caught and prepared.  Of course my favorite part of the story is when the little creature turned into a kitten because cats are the best. 

I’m not sure what story I want to retell for my storytelling post yet but I think I might find one from the first half of the unit.  The only problem is these stories are so in depth and long, having three parts, that it will be difficult to condense all the stories into one and keep it within the limits.  

Alice in Wonderland 

Reading Diary A: Looking Glass Unit

I have read several of these stories before as a kid but not as closely as some of the other Alice in Wonderland stories.  My favorite part of Looking Glass House cont. was the poem that Alice read.  I remember reading this as a kid and not knowing a single word it seemed and now that I’m older and reading it again I can’t say a whole lot has changed.  I think that’s why I like this poem so much.  It is so different and includes language that I’ve never heard of so reading it was refreshing.  Even Alice can relate as she says she found it rather difficult to read after she finished it. 

Tweedledee and Tweetledum was another story that I enjoyed reading again.  I thought the rhyme in the story was cute and fun even though it was pretty short.  What I liked about this story and all of these stories in general is the language they use.  There are so many words that are either a little foreign to me or ones that aren’t used very often anymore and I think it’s fun that they incorporated some of those into these stories. 

This was by far my favorite unit thus far.  It makes the reading a lot more fun and interesting when they are stories that you already know and love.  I’ve said it before but it’s helpful too that these stories have such good and vivid images to associate with them.  The new Alice in Wonderland movie really helped me relive some of those moments in the story from the movie.  

Tweetledee and Tweetledum - Alice in Wonderland

Storytelling Week 6: The Game

Once upon a time in a faraway land lived two little kitties, Moe and Lucy; Moe, who was a long haired tabby cat and Lucy, a short white haired cat.  All cooped up inside and wanting to have some fun, the two kitties decided to go for an afternoon stroll.  As they started down the street, they saw Hadley, the meanest kitty of them all.  Hadley had these dark black eyes to match her even darker fur coat.  She looked as mean as you’d imagine. 

Hadley stopped and hissed at them and ran after them until she couldn’t keep up with the two younger kitties much longer and she disappeared into the distance.

Desperately trying to escape the mean old Hadley, the two little kitties were running for their lives when they found Clo, a calico with vibrant orange colors, hiding behind a bench. 

They said to Clo, “Come with us! Hurry and run!  

"It’s Hadley!  And she isn’t far behind!  Hurry! She’s coming, she’s coming!”   

One more kitty again running for her life, Clo took off with the other two in hopes of never coming across Hadley.  

Now there were three little kitties running down the road when they happened upon the group's youngest member, Baker, who was on the other side of the road.  They meowed to Baker, “Come, Baker, come!  

"Hadley is coming! I can almost hear her!”  So went Baker, Clo and the two little kitties all running down the road.

They continued on their journey to escape the meanest cat of them all.   Off in the distance they found Scottish Fold, Pepe, who was sitting near a mailbox.  Again the kitties cried for Pepe to hurry because Hadley was coming.  

All of the kitties were scared for their lives so they ran and ran as fast as they could.  They hadn’t seen Hadley since back before Clo but they knew she was coming so she had to be close. 

They made it to the market, a little ways up the road, where they were greeted by none other than Hadley.  

Clo, Baker, Pepe and the two little kitties knew they had been seen.  

There was nothing to do but freeze in their tracks and Hadley approached them and gave one a whack.  She bopped little Pepe right on the nose and as she did it, she shouted, “Tag!  You’re it!” 

 All of the kitties laughed except for little Pepe who was now trying to catch one of the other kitties! 

 And so the game went on, for hours and hours, until all the kitties had been caught and tagged. 

Tired and worn out, all the kitties went home.  Their game of tag was an afternoon ritual and before the kitties departed, they meowed, “See you tomorrow.”  The kitties were no longer bored from sitting at home and were looking forward to the next day when they would once again run for their little cat lives from their very best friends, Clo, Barker, Pepe and Hadley.  Very soon, they would all meet again.  

Cat hiding 

Author's Note: For this week's storytelling post, I decided to retell the story of The Two Little Cats.  In the original story, two little kitties were going to find some salt to put in their tea and along the way, they ran into some unusual characters.  All of the animals that the kitties ran into offered to help the kitties find some salt for their tea and protect them against the meanest animal of them all, Handre.  I was inspired by the original story to turn their adventures of getting salt for their tea into a game of tag.  Instead of having all the characters the cats ran into be different, I made them all cats and best friends at that.  In the original story, there were two kitties, a cow, dog, crow, snake, a panful of ashes, a package of needles, and a bowl of peas.  I wanted all the animals to be cats because I always see cats running together and I thought it would be something you might see in real life. I wanted to make the story more uplifting from the original.  In the original, the dreaded Handre was killed and eaten by the dog and I wanted my story to be a little more positive than that.  I thought that having all the cats just play a game would be a different outcome than what people might have expected.   Tibetan Folk Tales by A.L. Shelton with illustrations by Mildred Bryant (1925). 

Reading Diary B: British Isles Unit

Who Stole the Tarts? Was one of my favorite stories from the second half of Alice in Wonderland.  My favorite part of the story comes towards the end when the White Rabbit unrolled the scroll that read, “The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer day: The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, and took them quite away!”  There was another part that really stuck out to me in this story and that was when the Hatter took a bite out of his teacup.  “…looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.”  As I finished reading, I remembered how much I enjoyed this part of the story and the movie.  It also reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Willy Wonka takes a bit of the teacup in the movie.  It’s ironic since he also plays the Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland as well. 

I think these stories were brilliantly written.  The dialogue between all the characters seemed very realistic and the use of such short remarks seems like something I would hear in a normal conversation about whether someone is guilty of something or not.  In the second part of the story it goes on to say:

“I didn’t” the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

“You did!” said the March Hare.

“He denies it,” said the King: leave out that part.”

The short conversation made me laugh and it was just fun to read.  Like in the first half, I really enjoyed all of the images that went along with the stories and thought there were a lot more images in this particular unit than in previous ones which I enjoyed.  

Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland

Reading Diary A: British Isles unit

One of the stories I really liked in the first half of this unit was Advice from a Caterpillar.  I remember reading stories of Alice in Wonderland as a kid and of course I saw the movie as well.  It was helpful when reading the stories because I could associate them with images I remember from the most recent movie.  In this story, it was really easy to see how the characters developed. 

I also really liked the second part of the story.  I particularly liked the way the story was structured.  There were a lot of images and I liked how it went back and forth between anecdotes and images. 

My favorite story was that of Pig and Pepper.  These two were my favorite characters from the movie and I was looking forward to reading these stories in this unit! 

I really enjoyed all of the stories in this unit, at least the first half anyways!  I am really excited to use one of these stories to for my storytelling post this week.  I am not sure what story I want to use yet but I am hoping I find one in the second half that I like as well. 

I thought all of the images attached to the stories were really fun too!  Like I mentioned before, it was easy to associate stories with the movie and the images made it even easier too. 

Alice in Wonderland 

Storytelling: Week 10 Strange Pie

The contestants all lined up, waiting to register for the most prestigious pie eating contest.  The contest always drew such a large crowd and number of participants due to its large prize.  Whoever ate the most pies in four minutes would be awarded a brand new Corvette. 

Registration ended and the contestants were patiently awaiting their pies to begin the contest.  The pies were brought out one by one, each pie having a different and unique flavor. 

What the contestants didn’t know ahead of time was that the pies were not the normal pies they thought they would be.  In previous years, there were the standard apple pies, banana cream, key lime, blackberry, chocolate mousse, and peach.  This year, the tables were turned and the pies weren’t their normal household favorites. 

The announcer stepped up in front of the crowd and shouted, “Welcome, welcome to the pie eating contest!  This year, we’ve done something different with the pies and we think you’ll be surprised,” he said.

“Prepare yourselves audience and contestants.  Under your seats you will find a description of all of the pies this year.”

As the crowd reached under their seats, the look on their faces was pure disgust.

The paper read:

This year, we will be replacing all tasty pies with ones less appealing.  Continue reading for a full list of this year’s pies.

Instead of apple pie, we are serving a delicious siracha pie – spicier than you could imagine

For the banana cream pie, we are having a mayonnaise and whipped cream pie

Key lime will be turned into a cactus puree pie

Blackberry pie has transformed into a hearty eggplant pie

Our traditional chocolate mousse will instead be a pepper blend pie – with jalapenos, bell peppers, and most importantly, ghost peppers

And just because we don’t want to be too mean, peach pie will remain the same.

Thank you for your participation and support of this year’s contest.

It was time.  The contestants were to begin eating the new pie creations.  Once the whistle blew, the contestants were off to a hesitant start.  One brave participant stuck his fork right into the siracha pie, took a bite, and threw up immediately.  Several others tried but had the same experiences.  No one could keep it down.  For the next four minutes, no one touched any of the other pies until the competition was officially over. 

Since technically no one ate any of the pies, the grand prize belonged to no one.  There the Corvette sat, in perfect view of all the contestants, without a new owner. 

While the contestants were upset about their defeat, they all agreed that the new car wasn’t worth it.  Why they decided that it wasn’t worth it, no one knows.  I mean, come on, it’s a new Corvette.  Suck it up.  Eat some siracha pie.  

Pie eating contest - Huckleberry Festival

Author’s Note: This story was based off of Mole Wins theRace with Coyote and the Other Animals in the Apache Unit.  In the original story, animals were competing in a race in order to marry a woman if they got to the finish line first.  In the end, the mole ended up marrying the woman while the other competitors had no idea and continued running towards the finish line.  I chose this story to retell because I liked the idea of a race or competition of some sort that had a big prize.  I changed the foot race into a pie eating contest because I thought it was more fun and changed the normal pies to gross ones because it’s not something I have ever heard of before and thought it would be interesting and different.  

Reading Diary B: Apache Unit

One of my favorite stories from the second half of the unit was Coyote Tries to Make His Children Spotted.  Like many of the other stories I’ve read in this unit, I really liked the beginning and then it made quite the turn.  The story was about how a coyote wants his children to be spotted like the deer’s fawns.  The deer tells the coyote that the reason fawns have spots is because they stand by a fire and the sparks give them spots.  It seemed like a cute story to begin with but then turned dark when the coyote tried that method with his children and they were all burned to death.  I think I might consider retelling this story so that it isn’t so sad. 

I have noticed that the reoccurring theme throughout this unit seems to be death.  I also liked the story Coyote Kills the Prairie Dogs.  Even though the story was dark, I liked that it was centered on a dance.  I liked that a Wildcat was introduced towards the middle of the story because it added an extra character. 

Another story I liked was Coyote and the Mexicans.  I liked the set-up of the story and the way that all of the dialogue was separated into their own lines.  It made the reading flow smoothly and helped show which character was talking. 

Still, I thought all of the stories were strange but in a good way.  The stories were different than most that I’ve read so I’m glad I got to read a variety of different types of stories.  

fawn in a field

Reading Diary A: Apache Unit

This week I decided to read stories from the Apache Unit.  

Even though The Culture Heroes and Owl was a very strange story, for some reason, I liked it.  When I first read the story, I didn’t think it would turn out the way it did. In the story, when the companions wanted something to play with, I thought the story would be a fun story about some new type of toy that they came up with or made in order to entertain themselves but then it quickly changed as I kept reading.  Towards the end, the story got a bit repetitive with only minor changes each time. 

One of the other stories I liked was Naiyenesgani Rescuesthe Taos Indians.  This story was similar to the first one I liked in that it was pretty repetitive as well.  Different from the first one, the second story was more repetitive at the beginning instead of the end of the story.  One thing that I found interesting in all the stories, this one especially, was all of the different names and spellings of names.  Most of them I don’t know how to pronounce.  I think if I were to retell any of these stories I’d come up with much simpler names. 

My favorite story of the first half was definitely The Monster Fish because it reminded me of a story that I retold a couple of weeks ago.  My story was about a lake monster which kept me interested in this story as I kept reading it.  I think I might choose this story to retell but I’d have to put a very different spin on it so it differs from my original storytelling post.

Fish

Essay: North America Unit

Though I thought that the stories that I read for this unit were good reads, I wasn’t too fond of the topic for this week and next week, Native America.  I think I would have liked the opportunity to read more stories from other units and write about them more.  For all of the other weeks, I wrote an extra reading diary post because I thought there were so many good stories I wanted to explore them all.  For this unit, I found myself digging for stories that I liked.  I know this is personal preference but after I finished all the readings in my particular unit, I felt that I gained more knowledge and learned different and better techniques to use when writing my own stories.  With that being said, mission accomplished.  It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy the unit, it’s just that there were other ones that sounded more appealing to me, personally. 

Overall, I just felt a little less creative.  As for how the stories were structured, I thought it was great, as usual.  The overview for the British North America unit contained information that I wanted to know before reading all the stories but I wish I had known more about who Haida, Shuswap, and Inuit peoples were.  It was nice to be prepped on what the language of the stories were like because I prefer when the stories vary in style, it helps keep it interesting. 

Like with every unit, it is all set up so nicely that it is very easy to navigate through the stories and go back to the ones you really liked to read again and potentially use as your storytelling post.  Especially in this unit, with the stories being a little shorter than others, it allowed for more creativity in storytelling posts because you can elaborate more and branch out from the original.  

Inuit Peoples

Storytelling Week 5: The Tree

Once upon a time, there lived a poor man Paul.  Born into poverty, money and wealth was something he had never known.  He had a wife and three children and as a poor man, he was a beggar and would walk around the village, asking for any food he could have to feed his family. 

He went door to door for weeks and received enough food to get by but as the weeks turned into months, the food became scarce.  He knew he couldn’t keep up the unknown of whether or not his family would have food for much longer for it was not enough for his family anymore. 

One day, Paul saw an old, cranky man who had lived in the village for sixty years and there, he overheard the man, who owned one hundred acres of property in the village, say he had an announcement to make the following day at noon. 

Hearing this news, Paul was going to return the next day at noon to see what the landlord had to say, hoping it might be something that would help his family.  Though Paul knew his hope was a little far-fetched, he had no other options. 

So the next day, the landlord came out to make his speech.  Little did Paul know, the landlord was looking for someone to do a task for him and in return, he who completed the task would be granted a great reward.  

Paul asked, “Sir, what is the task you need done?  I am willing to do anything.” 

The landlord replied, “I am in need of someone to go fetch me an apple from the tallest apple tree far away in the forest. This is a tree that no one can miss.  It is the tallest, biggest, and most plentiful apple tree anyone has ever seen. 

Though I know no one has ever been able to climb it, since the land out there has a history of being haunted by the dead who roam there, the man who picks the apple will be granted ten acres of my land.  There, you will be able to live rent free forever.” 

Paul knew that no one had ever been able to climb the tree alone or dare to wander that far in fear of the ghosts, but he also knew this was his only chance at saving his family from the poor, begging life he was living.  Terrified of the unknown, none of the other men accepted the challenge to make their way out to the tree and get an apple, except for Paul, whose desperation kept him motivated.

And so, that night, Paul walked out into the depths of the forest, into the land where ghosts roam, to find the apple tree and grab just one apple for the landlord.    

Paul was on the lookout.  Though he had never been afraid of ghosts before, the stories he heard about the ones here made him weary.  As he searched and searched for the tree, he never once saw a ghost anywhere.  Onward he searched until - there it was. 

When he finally saw the tree, he knew the landlord was right.  It was the tallest, biggest, most plentiful apple tree he had ever seen.  There was more fruit on the tree than he could have ever imagined.  He knew this was enough to feed his whole family for months and months. 

“If there were some way that I could build a home out here, my family and I would be set.  I don’t have the money or the resources to build a home, but this tree would provide enough food,” he said to himself. 

But Paul was torn.  He knew there was a decision to make.  If he returned the apple to the old man, he would have a place to live but no food and if he didn’t return the apple, he would have enough food but no place to live. 

As he paced, thinking about what he should do, he saw a small hole in the trunk of the tree that was barely visible from the tall grass surrounding it but once he pushed aside the grass, the hole was even larger than he thought.  

Intrigued, he took a closer look and saw the most amazing thing. 

Inside the bark of the tree was the safe haven he was looking for.  It was like an underground bunker, safe from the harsh weather, big enough for his whole family, and inside the tree that produced enough fruit for his family to survive. 

Because no one else volunteered to climb the tree for the landlord, he knew that no one would come looking for him if he did not return and with that in mind, he decided not to go back. 

Back at the village, Paul’s family was anxiously awaiting his arrival.  They wanted to be there when Paul was granted the land, so that they could all celebrate together.  They knew that Paul was not one to be afraid of ghosts and they all knew he would be victorious and face the danger.  But as they stood there, they overheard yelling in the near distance. 

“That ignorant beggar!” exclaimed the landlord.  “I knew he couldn’t do it.  No one ever has!  Paul and his family will never live on my land!” 

Overcome with fear after what they heard, the family left the village and began searching for Paul.  They made their way to the apple tree, unafraid of anything or anyone they might run into, including the ghosts.  This was last place they knew he’d be. 

Panicked, the family yelled for Paul.  “Paul!  Paul!  Are you here?  We’ve looked everywhere!  Please, if you’re out here, come to us!” 

Paul heard the cries of his wife and kids and came running out of the trunk of the tree. 

“My family!  I have found shelter for you, here, inside this tree.  It will protect us and feed us for years to come.”  “Out here in this wonderful land, there was no sight of any ghosts, no fear, nothing to scare us away!  The rumors of ghosts had to be untrue or maybe they knew the plea of a desperate man and decided to let us stay without conflict.”   

His family was overjoyed. 

With tears of happiness in her eyes, his wife said, “We can’t believe you have found somewhere for us to live and provide for us.  We can’t thank you enough!”

“Before we go inside, there’s just one more thing I need your help with,” said Paul. 

So before they went inside, with the help of his family, Paul climbed the apple tree and tossed down six dozen apples to his kids. 

Together, Paul and his family were set.  He found an unexpected place for his family to live without having to put up with the demands from the landlord. 

There they lived, together, protected, and far from hungry.  

Apple tree

Author’s note: This story was based off of the original story, The Story of a Brahmadaitya. I decided to keep small aspects of the original story but change many of the details.  In the original story, the Brahman, who in my story is Paul, was a poor man who overheard a man in the village say that he was willing to give away ten acres of land if someone would go get him a branch from a very haunted tree.  Those who had gone before had died and never returned, so none of the others wanted to try except for the Brahman.  When he finally gets to the haunted tree, the ghosts, instead of hurting the Brahman, actually helped him and allowed him to take a branch so that he could have a place to live.  He returned to the landlord with the branch and from there, was granted the land he was promised.  I decided to only retell the first portion of the story because I liked it best and really wanted to put my effort into retelling it.   I really liked the original story so I wanted to keep some of the original aspects of the story.  I thought the story was an interesting ghost story because it didn’t turn out the way you’d expect.  Typically, you don’t think of ghosts being helpful but in the original, they were.  In the original, the Brahman was so brave and also desperate for help that he was willing to do anything and I wanted to keep that aspect in my story.  I wanted to change the story from supernatural to a more realistic story so, I changed the focus from a tree branch to an apple tree so that it would serve the purpose of providing Paul with food for his family.  Part of my inspiration for Paul finding a hole in the tree came from Alice in Wonderland.  There, Alice falls down the rabbit hole and here, Paul finds a hole in the tree that leads to another "world" for his family, a safe haven.  

Bibliography:
Folk-Tales of Bengal by Rev. Lal Behari Day with illustrations by Warwick Goble (1912).