One night a girl named Katy was curled up in her bed all tucked in
to go to sleep. She was drifting off to sleep when a loud clap of thunder
sounded and lightning struck and woke her up. Scared, she ran to her mother’s
room with her blanket in hand. She crawled up next to her mother and shook her
until she woke up.
Katy said,
“Can you tell me a story to keep my mind off the storm? I want to hear a story
about a princess and some penguins!"
The mother thought
about it and said, “Okay, I can do that.”
“Once upon a time
there was a beautiful princess who loved animals. One day she asked her father
if she could have a pet penguin. Her dad said, “You can have a penguin as long
as you take care of it yourself!” So the princess set out to acquire the
perfect penguin.
On her journey she
found many lovely penguins. She just had not found the one that seemed to be
the perfect companion. The princess found a penguin who she thought was kind,
that loved her, and a friend.
On her way home
she decided to name the penguin Penelope. Penelope loved the princess and
wanted to keep the princess happy. Her favorite place to be was at the princess’s
side. The princess, however, was not sure that Penelope would make her happy.
Penelope asked the
princess, "What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?"
The princess went
on about her hobbies until they made their last stop.
On the last stop
before the castle a penguin walked up to the princess and tapped her on the
leg. She looked down and saw a beautiful penguin. She bent down and asked the penguin,
"Where is your family?"
The penguin
replied, "I don't know. I haven't seen them in a few days."
The princess
picked the penguin up and carried him toward the carriage. They searched for
his family and were unsuccessful. The princess decided that he should come home
with her as well. On the carriage ride home the princess fell in love with the
penguin. She decided that he should be named Paul.
Paul showed his
love to the princess, but not as often as Penelope did. Paul didn't constantly
want to be in the princess’s lap. To the princess, Paul was the perfect pet
penguin.
When they arrived
at the castle the princess showed them around the grounds. When they arrived at
Paul and Penelope’s room she told them," There are a few rules that I need
you to follow. The first rule is you do not go outside without letting someone
know. The second is don't go exploring the castle by yourselves. Someone needs
to know where you are to keep you out of danger."
The princess spent
most of her time with Paul. They did everything together from playing together
to having tea. This angered Penelope because the princess didn't want to spend
time with her. The princess was more enthralled with Paul. She seemed like she
didn't care what happened to Penelope.
Penelope was
starting to feel left out. Slowly this anger started to turn into jealousy.
Penelope let jealousy get the best of her and came up with an idea of how to
get rid of Paul. She was going to go outside to “play” while the princess was
in class. When she got Paul outside she would take him into the cave that she
found when she was exploring near the castle and they would "get
lost" and go separate directions trying to find help. Penelope being the
smart penguin she was had a map ready for her escape from the cave.
So the next
day while the princess was in class she walked up to Paul and asked, “Don’t you
think it would be fun to get out of the castle and go explore?”
Paul, looking at
her confused, asked, “Why would you want to go outside this great place?
The princess will be out of class shortly. We can ask her if we can go
explore.”
Penelope
looked at him with her eyebrows raised and said, “Don’t you want to explore
now? Why do we have to always do what the princess wants to do?”
Finally, after a
little more convincing Penelope's plan was starting to go as planned. She
convinced Paul to go explore outside.
Once outside
Penelope found a cave and told Paul, “Let’s go explore this cave! It looks like
fun!”
Paul looked at the
cave and responded, “I don’t like the dark, so I think I will stay out here and
explore in the light.”
The princess
came busting out the castle door calling for Paul and for Penelope. Penelope
was shocked that the princess was looking for her, while Paul was suprised that
the princess was scared.
The princess
softly asked them, “Why are y’all out here? You know it is not safe for you to
be out here."
Paul looked at her
with guilt-filled eyes and said, “I am sorry, princess. I just wanted to
explore with Penelope.”
The princess
grabbed both of them up in a hug and said, “Please don’t ever do that again!”
Penelope felt the princess’s love once again, and they lived happily ever
after.”
Katy looked at her
mom and asked, “Why was Penelope so mean to Paul?” Her mom took her in her arms
and said, "Sometimes when someone spends too much time with one friend
another friend gets jealous because they feel left out. When they feel jealous
they will be mean because they feel like their friend was mean to them. Now,
Katy, it is time for you to go back to your own bed."
Katy said, “Do I
really have to?"
Her mom replied,
"Yes, I love you, Katy!"
Katy hugged her
mom and headed back to her own bed.
I used the plot summary from the Greek King and the Physician to
come up with my story. The summary of the story was that the vizir was jealous
of the physician. The vizir tried to cause harm to the physician because of
this jealousy. The king had been sick and no one could heal him. The physician
came and talked to the king and made him a cure. The physician had used a polo
club that he filled with drugs to help heal the King. The physician gave the
King strict orders on what to do with the club. When the vizir figured out that
the physician had used drugs in the club, he told the King that the physician
was trying to kill him. The vizir was attempting to make the king mad at the
physician. This translation of the story was written back in the 1800's.
This story came from a story inside a story. The main changes I made were the
setting and time period, along with the fact that I added penguins. I had a
character that came into the story who caused someone else to become jealous.
The stories are similar in the fact that there were two characters who tried to
get another in trouble because they were jealous of the other person. I
changed the time period and the setting because I thought it could become a
fairy tale. The image that I chose for this story reflects the two main
characters of the story Penelope and Paul. My overall motivation was to write a
story that reflected the values that were taught in the original story, but a
story that my nephew would enjoy listening to.
Bibliography:
Arabian Nights
by: Andrew Long
Paul and Penelope
By: D-Stanley
Link: Flickr
Ah, wow, you did such a great job changing up the source material—I definitely got a fairy tale vibe from this, and wouldn’t have guessed what inspired it. I like how your dialogue gives it a modern feel, which fits with the frame story of the mom telling the tale. I also thought your strategic use of paragraph breaks works really well, too; it gives a nice ebb and flow to the story.
ReplyDeleteMy only suggestion is that you consider explaining why it was the princess didn’t feel sure about Penelope. You mention near the beginning that she “was not sure that Penelope would make her happy,” but without any justifiable specifics, this kind of makes Penelope more sympathetic and the princess less so. Also, because the story about the penguins is technically being told by the mom, you need some way to set it apart. You put quote marks around the opening of the first penguin-story paragraph, but didn’t continue that trend. I totally understand if you don’t want to deal with carrying that all the way through, but in that case, you might want to set the frame story apart from the penguin story with italics or asterisk marks or something similar.
Great portfolio! After reading your other stories I liked how they followed the theme of a story within a story! I really enjoyed your story about the princess and the penguins. I liked how you started off with a little girl requesting a story! My nephew always requests the weirdest stories, so it was a very relatable intro! One thing that I noticed while reading this is it got a little difficult to tell which penguin she was talking about. I think using more of their names or splitting the content up can help this. A wow moment for me was how you tied in a lesson about jealousy! This was a great tie-in to the story and really sounded like something a mom would say (my mom calls them life lessons) Overall; I think you have a fun idea for a portfolio! I would love to read more stories about the princess and her unique pets!!
ReplyDeleteJust so you know… You have two different fonts for your two stories. I like the little details you added to the story! I think you did a great job describing what was happening and painting a picture of the story in my head. You could maybe add something about the mom being groggy or a little irritated even to make the story seem more realistic. Maybe add a sentence to transition between her not finding a penguin and then her finding one? If you really want to convey the feelings of Penelope, you could put it in first person. It is interesting that you used penguins! It confused me at first why she was looking for penguins but it makes sense as the story progresses. I love when people put stories inside of other stories. It reminds me of the Princess Bride and The Never Ending Story. Good job overall! I really enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew, what a story! I did not expect at all while reading this story that it would have anything to do with the story of the Greek King and the Physician. Since I know that story too, I can relate now how you were able to write this story. Moreover, I have to admit that it is very nicely written, at no point of the story I was expecting that the Princess would get back Paul and Penelope at the same time. I was expecting that Paul would actually get lost and Penelope would go back to the princess then she would be super sad or something. I also liked how you make the mother talk in the middle of the story making us really realize that the story is being told by a mom to her own daughter. I loved also how you picked penguins as the animal she wants because we all love penguins! Honestly after seeing one in real life, they are much weirder than cute. Anyway thanks for the story, it was a very nice read and you did a perfect job.
ReplyDeleteThe way you wrote the story suited telling a story to a child. Plus, it even gives a message. As I read the story, I thought that Penelope would be successful in her revenge, but I was surprised that she did not. Aside from this, since Paul did not want to sit on the Princess’ lap constantly and he was taking up all the princess’ time, I figured him to be the bad character. However, I realized that he was not a bad character after he apologized to the princess first after Penelope and he went to explore. I was surprised he spoke up first.
ReplyDeleteI liked the conversation between the mother and child. The way you wrote it made me feel the love and innocence between them. Also, adding the quotation marks in the paragraph about Penelope’s plan allowed me to understand that those words indicated that Penelope did not intend on doing those things. I could imagine the mother stressing out the words while telling the story to her daughter or actually making quotes with her fingers.
Besides this, I wonder what inspired the princess to get a penguin of all the other animals since she loved animals.
Hi Ashley!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story. I think this is the first one that I have seen to have a story within a story. It is a very clever approach and it did a good job of getting my attention. I also liked that situation you presented as to why the second story was being told. A scared little girl looking for a fairy tale was perfect. The story of the penguins was sophisticated enough to present a good moral and was also fun and concise enough to pass for a children's bedtime story. I tried to find some things to give you constructive feedback on and the only thing that I would really say is to maybe make the separation between the actual story and the author's note more prominent. It isn't difficult to figure out where the story starts and the note begins, but it might make it flow a little bit better. Honestly though I was just trying to find something to give you good feedback on because your story looks to be in pretty good shape. Good Job!
Hi Ashley! I was automatically interested to read your story because of the title! I have read a ton of princess stories, but none that really involved a penguin. You are a really great writer. Right off the bat when I was reading the very first paragraph, I could visualize everything you were describing. I also loved how your story was a story within a story. It made the whole thing really interesting and fun for me to read. Also, your Author’s Note gave me a great amount of information to really understand the background of the original version of the story. The only thing I would change is moving the picture and picture information to the very top of the story. However, not everyone wants to do that in their portfolios so if you prefer it at the bottom, just leave it there! Overall, I think you did a great job!
ReplyDeleteHey Ashley!
ReplyDeleteWow, I love a good princess story!
That being said... I never thought about incorporating a penguin into one before. It was interesting how you put a story into another story! I have never thought to do that before but I love that you did!
Great work!