Week 10 Story: The Monkey and the Crocodile

There once was a young crocodile named Marty. He was the runt of his family and his older brothers always made fun of him because he could never seem to bring dinner home to the family.  On top of that there was also this monkey that lived up the bank that constantly made fun of Marty and made him feel inadequate. 

One day Marty’s mom, Dorothy, called him over and said, “Marty, I need you to go out and get dinner for us, your brothers and father are away hunting for gazelle.”

Marty replied, “Mom, what should I hunt for?”

His mom replied, “Just enough to feed us hunny.”

Marty then wagged his tale and went off in search of food for them.  Along the way up the bank to where the deer where he heard a voice call out to him.

“There goes that little runt, Marty. Says he is a crocodile but can never catch anything.”

Marty looked up and there was Damon, the wise cracker of the monkey’s, laughing at him. Marty grew mad just thinking about all the times Damon had called the other animals to laugh at Marty when he couldn’t secure dinner for the family.

 An idea formed in Marty’s head he thought, “If I pretend like i am giving up on hunting and pretend to cry maybe I can lure Damon down and we can eat him for dinner.”

After Marty had formulated this plan he proceeded to act it out.

He cried to Damon, “you are right, I am the worst hunter, so I give up! You win Damon, are you happy!”

Damon, upon hearing this, was shocked because he did not think that crocodiles would take jokes so seriously. He then proceeded to sing down to the lowest branch of the tree that he was in and looked at Marty.

He said, “We are just messing with you Marty, but if you want to give up why not just live on land. I’m sure the other animals will have use for a crocodile that can’t hunt.”

He then proceeded to laugh loudly and as he roared his head back he noticed that Marty winked at him.

He thought, “That is odd, why is Marty winkiiiiinnnngggg…”

Marty jumped out of the water and snatched Damon out of the tree as Damon was deep in thought.  With one powerful bite Damon was dead, no longer able to taunt and heckle Marty. When Marty returned home his father, brothers, and mother were all there.  Once they saw that Marty had Damon in his jaws they cheered for Marty had finally become one of them. That night a grand feast was held with the family heaping praise on Marty for killing the most annoying monkey in the jungle.

Monkey. (December 4, 2015)

Saidkarimail. Source: Wikicommons

Authors Note: 

I wanted to change up this story. In the original the monkey gets the best of the crocodile.  With this one I wanted the crocodile to turn the table on the monkey and get the last laugh.  I think having Marty being bullied by the monkey makes everyone feel for him and want him to finally get a kill.  This story isn’t as long as ones that I usually post because I want this one to be short, sweet, and to the point. It is serendipitous that that kill would be the Monkey. The lesson of the story is that karma will come around and bite you on the butt.

Bibliography: Babbitt, Ellen. The Monkey and the Crocodile. The Monkey and the Crocodile.

Reading Notes Part B: Jakata Tales Part B

After reading Part B I realized that all the stories were written by the same person, whoops.  Anyway, I think that all the stories in Part B are wonderfully done and there is hard to find any fault with them.  The descriptions that the writer uses helps me visualize and bring to life in my head what I am reading.  I know I have stated this countless time, but I think that it is super important to be able to have your reader visualize while they are reading what you have written.  That is the first and only way to draw their intention ion.  If the reading is bull and boring the person is most likely to skip it or read it once and then discard it from their mind.  With these stories, I know that they will stay with me for a long time. It definitely was not easy to pick a favorite story because I felt they were all very well written and conveyed the message well.

Again, the only thing that bugs me is the fact that most of the characters are animals.  I know that the Indians believed certain animals to be spiritual and holy, but I think it would be ok to throw human characters in there once and a while.  Reading about animals does get a bit stale after a while. I noticed that in this day and age it seems that the same animals that we think are dumb and stupid, the Indian’s did too.  We probably should treat all animals equal and not focus on what we think their intelligence is. That is probably the only thing that I have to nit-pick at. Overall, I did enjoy Part B stories and I kind of hope we get to read more stories like this because they were short and to the point.

Great Horned Owl. (March 9. 2016)

Peter K. Burian. Source: Wikicommons

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Jataka Tales. Jataka Tales

Reading Notes Part A: Jataka Tales Part A

I really enjoyed all the stories in Part A. I thought they all did a good job of expanding on the stories from the old times and making them easier to understand.  I feel like the lessons that are being taught in these stories are a lot easier to understand than if we were reading something that written way back when. Sometimes, I do find it difficult to follow along with older stories because the way that they are written are very confusing. The story that I probably will write on is the monkey and crocodile.  What I may do to add a twist that instead of having the monkey get away from the crocodile, is have the monkey get too cocky and die.  While this is a dark take on the story it probably would be good to remind everyone that not all stories have good endings. I would also make the crocodile smarter than to monkey because too often crocodiles and sharks are considered quite dumb in stories like this and so having them being smart would be interesting. As Indian stories have shown us sometimes they do have the happiest ending.  

What I do find a little annoying about these stories is that they seem to all have a lesson to attach to them.  Why can’t a story just be a story and have no lesson with it.  Seems like all too often a story is trying to teach people something. I think having two evenly matched people/creatures would be an interesting take and make the story seem for even. Overall though, I did really enjoy reading all these stories. I liked how student made them up and put a more realistic spin on them than what we have read in the past.

Ox. (September 15, 2016)

AB.C. Source: Flickr

Bibliography: Gibbs, Laura. Jataka Tales. Jataka Tales