One afternoon during the middle of summer, Jenny was lying on the
floor waiting for 1:00 to roll around. When the clock struck 1:00, she turned
on the radio and tuned it to her favorite station. Jenny loved 94.6 The Kids Channel. Every day at 1:00 they would take a break and have story time. That
day when she tuned into the station, it was a story of How Brer Rabbit Got a House.
The radio
announcer said, “Well, kids, it is 1:00. That means it is time for a story. Today’s
story is about a trickster named Brer Rabbit. We will hear about one of his
tricks that he pulled on Brer Bear today. So let’s get this story started.”
The radio
announcer turned over the mic to the storyteller Mrs. Hodges. Mrs. Hodges began
reading the story with voices for every character saying, “Once upon a time the
animals of the woods all came together for a town meeting. At this town meeting
Brer Possum came up with an idea.
Brer Possum said,
“I think we should build a house to keep out all the bugs.”
Brer Wolf asked,”
Who would live in this house?”
Brer Possum
answered,” Anyone can live in this house. We can build it large enough that
everyone can fit! We can even build a room where animals can go when they are
sick.”
With this, the
animals all agreed to building the house. The next day, they started building
the house. All the animals were working hard except for one, Brer Rabbit.
Brer Possum asked
Brer Rabbit,” Hey, Brer Rabbit, can you climb up the scaffold and help Brer Wolf
with this wall he is working on?”
Brer Rabbit
climbed up the scaffold. When he reached the top of the scaffold he shouted at
the top of his lungs, “Oh, I feel so dizzy up here, I don’t think I can stay up
here very long.”
Brer Wolf (not
wanting anyone to get hurt) told Brer Rabbit, “Climb back down and go help Brer
Fox with his work.”
Brer Rabbit
climbed back down the scaffold, but instead of helping Brer Fox he started
telling the other animals what to do.
Brer Rabbit went
on to tell Brer Coon, “Climb up the scaffold and help Brer Wolf with the wall.
Brer Possum, why don’t you go help Brer Fox? He looks like he could use some
help.”
It didn’t take the
animals very long to finish building the house. Brer Rabbit was giving orders
left and right. After the house was finished it looked amazing! Brer Rabbit
decided that he wanted the room on the second floor to himself. He then came up
with an idea of how to trick the animals into leaving the house.
A few days later
after they finished the house, all the animals came home and Brer Rabbit told
the others, “I don’t feel so well. I am going to go upstairs and sit for a
little while.”
Brer Bear answered
for the group, “Well, we will stay downstairs. We will also try to stay quiet.”
Brer Rabbit went
upstairs. Instead of sitting down he crawled under his bed and got out a
double-barreled shotgun, a tub of water, and a cannon. After being upstairs for
a few minutes he loaded the double-barreled shotgun, and fired off two rounds.
This made the other animals jump. They weren’t sure what was going on.
Then, Brer Rabbit
called down the stairs, “I need to spit! Where do I spit?”
Brer Bear replied,
“Wherever you can make it to!”
Brer Rabbit then
ran towards the door near the stairs. He used the tub to throw water down the
stairs. The water soaked Brer Possum and Brer Bears daughters'. This made them
worry.
Brer Rabbit called
down the stairs one more time, “I need to sneeze!”
Brer Possum said,
“Well then, sneeze Brer Rabbit!”
Brer Rabbit went
to the cannon and fired off a round. This scared all the animals so much that
they took off for the hills! The animals never came back to that house. That is
how Brer Rabbit got his house.
Now, boys and
girls, that is all the time we have for story time today. Tune in tomorrow to
hear another trick of Brer Rabbit's!”
Jenny got up off
the floor turned the radio off and lay down, again waiting for the story that
she would hear tomorrow.
Bibliography:
Joel Chandler Harris
The plan's for the animals house.
Laura Gibbs Blog
Author's note:
The stories of Brer Rabbit came from the 19th century. It
is told in a language that uses slang that was well known in the African-American
culture. The story that I read is a version of the story that is being retold
as a verse. The original story kept tradition with the dialog from the country.
I basically took the original story and changed the way that it was told. I
added more dialog to make the story interesting along with the way that the
story was told. My version of the story takes away from some of the traditional
dialog. I struggled reading the dialog so I wanted to change it to be easier
for little kids to read. I liked the way the original story went along. I
couldn't think of anything creative to change this story. When adding dialog to
the story, I was able to be a little creative with the events that were
happening in the story. I tried to think up a way to change how Brer Rabbit got
his house but I couldn't think of anything that would be different than the way
the story ended. I also added the character of Jenny who made a short
appearance in this story. This came from the inspiration of the stories being told by Uncle Remus to a little boy.
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that you decided to write a story about Brer Rabbit. I could barely understand that reading, none the less draw inspiration from it. I like how you changed how the story was told, the radio story was very creative. Thank you so much for sharing, I am looking forward to reading more of your work in the future.
Andrew
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI love that you chose to do a radio station style for this story! I've been wanting to try that, but I've been a little intimidated by the idea. I also like that you made it into a storytelling station that seems to be directed at children. Those are two excellent story telling ideas; they both give you a unique way to summarize a story that may be difficult to extensively rework. I think you did an excellent job!
I appreciate that you made this story very easy to read but I was a little disappointed that you said you didn't change very much. Perhaps you could have reworked just how the rabbit scared them off? The canon and the bucket of water and the shotgun all seem so wild and out of place. Perhaps you could have come up with something a little more believable like hiding things to make a very bad smell so no one wanted to live there or something like that.
ReplyDeleteI do like your writing style though. It's very easy to read and sounds just like a little kid's book. I feel like this is something a 1st grader could pick up as a picture book and read it to themselves.
This was so fun to read! I know it sounds lame, but I have actually never read Brer Rabbit. I know it is a really famous tale, I just did not know what it was about. This was a really creative way to tell a story! I like how you first set the scene. I imagine someone from the 1930’s sitting in front of their huge radio waiting for a story to begin. Kind of like the family from A Christmas Story! I think you did an excellent job retelling this story, but giving it a little bit of a twist. My only recommendation would be to move the picture to the top of the story. It breaks up the Author’s Note and Story nicely, but I kind of overlooked it since it was in the middle! You definitely don’t have to change it if you don’t want to, only a suggestion!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting story!! I have to admit, I haven't read your source story, but from how you presented it here it seems VERY interesting. I like the way you segued from the main story into the specific telling of the Brer Rabbit story, but I wonder if there could be a little more meat put on the overall story instead of just the slight introduction and conclusion.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, stylistically, this is a really easy story to read. You are very good at going back and forth from dialogue to prose and I think (weirdly enough) that you capture each animal's essence very well. There's something very familiar about each of them and how they speak, yet there's still a distinction between all of them. This was really impressive to me because it made it so easy to read all the way through!
Other than that, I think you did a really good job here and think you have a real talent for writing!
I really like the idea of telling a story in the form of a radio show, it’s creative and adds a cool dynamic! The detail that Mrs. Hodges gave each character their own voice was a nice touch. It made me think back to elementary school during story-time. I felt bad for the other animals because they were so kind to Brer Rabbit and it wasn’t kind to them in return. I also liked how you wrote this story so that it was easier to understand, and I enjoyed your dialog too. Jenny was interesting because you used her to sort of “bookend’ the beginning and ending of the story. It made it easy to show the reader that the Brer Rabbit story was within another.
ReplyDeleteIn the first sentence you say “One afternoon during the middle of summer, Jenny…” and I think there’s supposed to be another comma before during. Other that that everything is great!