Forgotten Princesses: Storybook Styles Brainstorm

The topic I have chosen for this assignment is forgotten fairytales. After looking through stories, I have come to the realization that I want to narrow it down even more to forgotten princesses. I have found three stories so far that I would really like to use, but I also want to continue exploring to see if there are any I missed and really love. The stories I found so far were all from Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books. The three I liked were The Goose-Girl, Toads and Diamonds, and Princess on the Glass Hill.

Goose-Girl
From Wikipedia

Style Options:

My first idea for a style would be to take the prospective of our favorite storybook characters, and have them or one of them narrating. I thought it would be a cool idea to fashion it in the style of Mean Girls’ burn book. This would mean that the narration would tell all about why the characters were “forgotten” because of some flaw or weird quirk they had. Each page would have a new character on it, and then the narrator would launch into a terrible experience they had with that character, and why they made it into the burn book.



The next idea I had would be to have it from the perspective of the forgotten characters. It would be almost the opposite of the burn book idea, and instead the characters would all be upset that certain other characters always get the recognition. I would like to have all of the characters be a cohesive group where they are all hanging out together in a way and each have a story to tell about the famous characters. Each character would be talking about things in their story, and how a famous character messed everything up for them.



My third idea would be to do a new storybook. It would be branded as a storybook for kids with all the characters they had never heard of. It would be from the perspective of someone who was reading the book. I was kind of thinking along the lines of how the movie The Princess Bride goes. I could use the introduction as a way to set this up, and then move into the stories. I could have possible breaks in the stories for one of the people to interject.



My last idea was to do a general overview of the forgotten characters and why they were forgotten. I would choose a few of my favorites, and detail their stories about why no one has ever heard of them. They may have weird things going on with them, or have made someone angry. I would probably make them all terrible people, or something along the lines. The famous characters and the forgotten ones would not get along at all in this story, and the famous ones would be favored by all authors (hence why they were not forgotten).



Bibliography:

The Goose-Girl from The Blue Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang (1889)

Toads and Diamonds The Blue Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang (1889)

Princess on the Glass Hill The Blue Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang (1889)

Storytelling Week 3: The Doctor and His Nurse

November 16th was a stormy night in Dallas, Texas. Sam had the late shift at the hospital again, but at leas he had it with all his fellow surgeon friends. He knew it would be a bad night with the storm. People in Dallas are the worst drivers when it comes to any kind of bad weather; snow, rain, even wind sometimes. When he got to work that night everyone already seemed to be in a state of panic, great. It could only get worse from here, he thought. On the way to change into his scrubs he saw his friend Clair. She told him there had been a 5-car pile up on the highway because of a huge semi truck. After hearing this, Sam hurried to change and get to work.

Dallas Storm
From Flick

When Sam got to his station, he looked at the board to see what surgeries were already scheduled, and what his plan looked like for the night. There were 7 surgeries in the next 7 hours! He looked around for the little red headed nurse named Kayla he was accustomed to being paired with, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He went to ask the head nurse on duty to see where she was. When he asked her, she said they were extremely short staffed tonight because of the storm. He asked again where his nurse was, but was not expecting to hear what the head nurse had to say.



Kayla had been one of the people in the pile up, and was in the ICU. 

Hospital Bed
From Pixabay

What now? Sam decided that not having that many nurses weren’t a huge deal. In his mind they didn’t really do that much anyways, so everything would go on as it usually did. The head nurse told Sam that the nurses that were here were rotating among all the surgeons getting people prepped for the surgeries they needed, but that may take a little longer than usual. Sam went to go prep for his upcoming surgery that was scheduled within the next hour. He waited three hours instead of one though. Finally his patient was ready, but they had lost so much valuable time. This went on all night with all of his surgeries.



After his shift was over, Sam went to see Kayla to check up on her, and see if she needed anything. Before he got there though he decided to get her some flowers and a card as a thanks for everything she does. He had never quite realized what a valuable part of his team she was, until she was no longer there. After this experience, Sam started being a lot nicer to the nurses on his team, and doing nice little things for them every once in a while. He realized that everyone has an important role, even if they don’t seem like it. The hospital is a cohesive team, and every part is needed to make it work properly.




Author’s Note: This story was adapted from the story of the body parts in Aesop’s Fables by Jacobs. For this story I thought about a place where every person would be crucial for success, and came up with a hospital (probably because I am obsessed with Grey’s Anatomy right now). I think most work places are like this though. Everyone has a crucial role to play, and without them things are harder, but sometimes it takes them being missing to fully realize this. This is the goal of this Aesop’s fable. It shows that although someone may not seem like they are contributing as much as someone else, what they are doing is still valuable work, and work that is needed.


Bibliography: “The Belly and the Members” by Jacobs. From Aesop’s Fables: Nature and Inanimate Objects.

Week 3 Reading Dairy Continued: The Nurse Who Kept it All Together

For the second part of the Aesop’s by Jacob’s unit, I really enjoyed the story about the parts of the body all coming together, and seeing that everyone has a job to do. They realize that without the stomach, they are all pretty useless, even if it gives them less work to do. Some jobs may not seem as important as others, but without them it would be hard to get by. I think for this story I would like to focus on a group setting, like in a hospital. In this hospital there would be a bunch of important surgeons (think Grey’s Anatomy). There would also be one nurse who is assigned to help all of these surgeons in the rooms. The nurse is like the stomach because although the nurse’s job seems easy, and not very important without her, the surgeons would not be able to perform any surgeries. For the part without the nurse, she will be home sick, and the hospital could not find a replacement quick enough. This makes the doctors realize how slow their day is going. Without the nurse there to prep the patients they can barely see two patients in a day! The absence of the nurse makes doctors realize how valuable she is to their team. They even start to think that she may be the most important part because she really knows how to keep the patients calm, cool, and collected before big surgeries. She also is very good at her job, and helps the surgeons focus on the task at hand.

Doctor and Nurse Bears
By Enokson from Flickr

Week 3 Reading Diary: The Senior and the Freshman

For this unit I have a lot to choose from for my favorite parts because of reading individual Aesop’s stories. My favorite story was the story of the mouse and the lion. This is the one where the mouse wakes the lion, but convinces him to let him go, and he will repay him. I think it is always nice to be friends with people you wouldn’t normally be friends with. It may not seem like it, but everyone has something useful to bring to a friendship. I think for a story from this I could do a high school setting, where the lion is a senior and has many friends, but one day something goes wrong, and she is left crying in the bathroom. A freshman would come in a see her, and ask if she wanted to talk about what had happened. The lion does not want anyone to know she was crying, so although it is unheard of for a senior to talk to a freshman she decides she wants someone to listen, and they form a friendship. From there on out the senior is very nice to the freshman. One day later on in the year, the senior some trouble finding a dress to wear for prom because all the dresses were so expensive. There is one she wants, but it is way to expensive for her to afford. She was talking to her freshman friend about her dilemma, and her friend told her not to worry about it because she could sew the exact dress she wanted! Then her friend would make her the perfect dress, and her prom would go exactly as she wanted it to. She realized that without her friend, she wouldn’t have even be able to join in on the experience that would soon be remembered as the best night of her life. 

The Lion and the Mouse
From Wikipedia 

The Lion and the Mouse from Aesop's Fables by Jacobs