Reading Notes: African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books, Part A

Hi!

Let me just say that I really enjoyed this unit! One of the things that I have liked the least from other readings is how they aren't very just. The bad guy keeps winning. So, reading these stories and getting to see the bad guy lose at the end of most of them was so refreshing.

I also liked that in the stories about the Jackals some characters overlapped, like the hedge hog and the greyhound. Especially since it gave more meaning to the actions in the later stories by creating a more complex backstory than I have seen in other readings. This isn’t something that is easily recreated in a story for my blog just because there isn’t a guarantee that anyone reading the story has read any of the other stories and putting two plots inside one story would be a lot for a blog post.

For a story this week it would be interesting to see what could be done with the first story about Motikatika. I think that I would probably stick to my general theme of making things less gruesome. So, I could make it about two kids at school evading a bully, or people trying not to get caught by the cops. In those situations, the bully or the cop would be the ogre and the people would be the mom and the baby. The bully would catch hold of a kid and ask for his lunch money and the kid would offer to find someone else to give him lunch money. The cop would arrest someone for a crime, and instead the person offers to turn in someone else but is actually framing them.

I think that both of those stories would be fun to write and could make for interesting reads. I think that the one that I am more knowledgeable about would be the one with the bully, making it easier; however, because of my lack of experience the cop story could be exciting to write. We’ll see when Thursday gets here!

Bibliography

Fairy Books by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1903)

Photo: A Series of Anatomical Plates The Structure of the Different Parts of The Human Body. by Jones Quain, M.D.Published in 1854. PD-1923

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