Week 15 Story: Children of a Feather

"Timmy!!!"

The Daycare attendant had yelled this name far too often for her liking.

"Timmy, come over here!"

The menace that was little Timmy strolled over to the long suffering Ms. Susan with an air of innocence that only the most guilty could have.

"Timmy, what did I tell you about tackling the other kids?"

A silence followed.

"I told you that it wasn't nice. Just because you are stronger doesn't mean you have to show it off. Now off to the corner for you, to think about what you've done."

Timmy didn't like this one bit.

"You have to catch me first!" The little devil replied before charging in between Ms. Susan's legs knocking her (and anything else in his path) flat down.

Oh what am I ever going to do? Pondered Ms. Susan, wondering if 27 was early enough to retire.

Suddenly a crash, quickly followed by a loud whining of pain.

As Ms. Susan rounded the corner of the room to see what the fuss was all about she frustratedly said, "Now what have you done this time, Timmy?"

But it was not Timmy. It was a new kid, one of the other attendants must have checked him in.

"Haha!" The young boy exclaimed over his still crying victim. He too ran off with all the grace of a tornado.

Ms. Susan was done for surely. She knew she'd have to quit now. She was far too young for all that white hair.

As she rounded the corner again, fully expecting to see a new disaster brewing with the two children, she was caught by surprise.

There was no fighting, no bickering. Timmy and the new kid were locked in what appeared to be a staring contest.

Ms. Susan stood there motionless until finally the boys seemed to come to an agreement and shook hands in a sign of peace.

"Huh, birds of a feather I guess..."



Author's notes:
Today's story is based of the Jataka tale, "Birds of a Feather" that I read a while back. The original story is about two wild horses and there is a bit of a intrigue plot with a wicked king and some peasants, but I personally enjoyed the horses part of the story best. While reading it, it really reminded me of children on a playground and so I hoped to capture some of that feeling in my retelling.

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Reading Notes: Francis and Thomas. Jataka Tales Part B

Back fro one final week of Jataka tales. Kinda emotional, mainly because of lack of sleep from other projects in other classes, but still...
Last time I tried to be very positive in my assessment and subsequent comments and T think that was a change for the better. Now however, I think I may have gone too far in that direction. For this week I will try to mix a more negative and positive approach to get a nice balanced set of thoughts on a story.

The Pigeon and the Crow:
This story is dark, especially for a children's tale. I get that it is warning of greed and lying and whatnot, but as a cautionary tale it is implying that if you steal even a bit of meat you will be skinned alive and killed! Maybe that was true, but a story for children is usually expected to have a bit of a softer edge to it. Maybe that is just my culture speaking though, a lot of Jataka tales end with the foolish animal's death....
That all being said, I did quite enjoy the imagery, and the choice of making them birds flying about being sorta friends was a fun visual in my mind while I read it. Overall although I was a bit concerned about the tone, I quite liked it.

The value of a Brother:
This story is... confusing to say the least. I comment on it because it is so simple, yet the meaning and explanations seem to allude me. The one thing I know for sure is that it is a story teaching young girls of the time that they must be married. Besides for that there is the part about a brother being more important than your husband of son, but I'm not entirely sure that's what it meant...
The story itself has an interesting premise, thios woman cleverly getting these three men out of a scrape they are in. Where it goes wrong is with the logic, which I hesitate to complain about in a children's book except that the logic is part way important to the meaning and I just can't seem to sniff that out.

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