Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

Hey guys :)

So for this post I will be doing some reading notes over the story The Foolish, Timid Rabbit.

Quick side note, this story captured my attention from all the other stories in the anthology of Buddhist Jataka stories from ancient India. Why? I just felt like it was a captivating and easy to follow story. I also definitely relate to the rabbit........opps haha.

Cute Timid Bunny, picture from Creative Commons 

Lets dive in!

Type of Story: "Sky is Falling" aka everyone overreacts

• more of these stories here

Style:

• The start of the story was an Once Upon a Time. While I do love this intro I have never used it in any of my stories last semester. It has a very magical mood to it and I think it pairs great with a story filled with talking animals, far away lands, and made up worlds. 

• This author uses action writing and does it pretty dang good in my opinion! I wanted to take notes on this and keep it in mind for next time I am writing a story that uses a quicker pace. 
• Uses speaking parts as a transition i.e. 
• "Another Rabbit saw him running, and called after him, "What are you running so fast for?" ... "Don't ask me!" he cried....But the other Rabbit ran after him, begging to know what was the matter....Then the first Rabbit said, "Don't you know? The earth is all breaking up!" And on he ran, and the second Rabbit ran with him".
• Be deliberate and direct i.e. just say it
• "One Rabbit after another joined them, until there were hundreds of Rabbits running as fast as they could go".

• This story is written in a third person point of view. I think it fits the story well, but if I retell this story I think I will write it in first person. I think it will be fun to write from the scared rabbit's point of view. Another option would be writing this story as a job interview for like a fire station (still a rabbit....but a fire fighter rabbit). Then it may be cool that as the rabbit gets questioned about this story, he freaks out when the interviewer's pen drops or etc!

Retelling Ideas:

• Change up the characters!
• I am a sucker for cute animals so I would prefer to keep the same characters haha, but there is definitely an opportunity to change this up. The animals could be different animals (maybe a timid lion), or even insects and the whole story takes place on a much smaller scale.
• Change up the ending!
• What if the world is ending? What if the lion and rabbit actually get in a fight with the monkey that dropped the coconut? What if it was all a dream (these stories are so frustrating to me)? Lastly, what if the animals aren't wild, but in a zoo and escape?
• Change up the time frame?
• You could definitely do a story about the rabbit's childhood. Maybe explaining why he is so convinced the world will end....or what caused the dream. The story could also be set in the future as a interview or as the rabbit looking back on old times with the lion laughing and arguing about what actually happened.

Bibliography: The Foolish, Timid Rabbit from Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt