Ashley's Portfolio Introduction

Here are the stories that I have added to my portfolio. They all are basically a different type of stories. I can't pick a favorite, but the ones that I worked the hardest on were Destination Destroyed, and All Alone. I hope you enjoy my stories.

Destination Destroyed
When Claire's  city is destroyed, what will happen to her future?

The Princess and the Penguin
Katy learns a lesson from the Princess and the Penguin.

 

Paul and Penelope

By: D-Stanley

Link: Flickr

The Story of Brer Rabbit's House

Jenny hears the story of how Brer Rabbit gets a house.  

The animals work together

Link:Laura Gibbs Blog

All Alone

The song of Cinderella.

Tattercoats

By: Wikimedia Commons

Storytelling: All alone

Author's Note:

This week I used a song and changed the words where it would tell the story of Tattercoats. I enjoyed reading this story. I have always loved music so I thought I would try something different. Warning: some of the lines are a little bit of a rough fit to the music so they don't flow as well as I would like. I kept thinking of how the girl in the song is kind of torn because she's always on the move. In the story, however, the girl isn't on the move. She has only one friend and the nurse that takes care of her.  On the day she was born, her mother died during her birth. Her mother was her grandfather’s favorite daughter. He blamed the death of his daughter on her and never wanted to see her face. Instead of a wicked stepmother, the girl is raised by the nurse who was there when she was born. The nurse tries her best to help her. She has one other friend, the goose hand. She spends time with him when she can. They were on their way to the castle when they met her true love. The song I used for this story is called Love Triangle by Raelynn. It talks about how divorce can be hard on a kid. It is one of my favorite songs for the moment, so while I was reading Tattercoats, which is pretty much a different version of Cinderella, I couldn't get this song out of my head. That is how I came up with this idea. Please let me know what you think.

Links:

Karoke Version of Love Triangle
Raelynn, Youtube

Love Triangle Offical Music Video
Raelynn, Youtube
Tattercoats
Joseph Jacobs
Love Triangle Lyrics
Raelynn, AZ lyrics

All Alone 

Sitting on the sofa
Looking out the window
Wishing for a family to
To share a life with
Wondering why she is all alone

Grandpa staring out the same old window
Wishing he could change some past events
His whole world turned upside down
He can't look at her at all
Not moving from his spot at all

The Nurse is there
To take care of her
And she does the
Best that she can

Some mommas and daddies
Can't be there for their kids
It's not by their choice
The kids grow up without a parent's love
Sometimes no one can fill that place
And then they get stuck
Being all alone

One day a word was spreading through town
The Prince was coming back to the kingdom
He was looking for a girl
Someone to be his wife
Grandpa heard and moved from the window
Not missing a chance to go to the  ball

One day the girl was running to the palace
Her friend the gooseherd was there for her
She was dressed in a tattered robe
When they ran into a man
He asked directions to the palace
She told him to tag along

Then he asks her to accompany
Him to the event
Where he will announce
She will be his bride

Some mommas and daddies
Can't be there for their kids
It's not by their choice
The kids grow up without a parent's love
Sometimes no one can fill that place
And then they get stuck
Being all alone

She asks him why me
He says she sweet

She thinks he's kidding

He tells her he will be
Expecting her at midnight
He can't wait till she's his wife

Some mommas and daddies
Can't be there for their kids
It's not by their choice
The kids grow up without a parent's love
Sometimes no one can fill that place
And then they get stuck
Being all alone

She shows up to the ball
He runs to her side
He takes her to the front of the crowd
He tells the King
That he's found his bride
The king is surprised
He asks the Prince are you sure?
The Prince responds
Says there is no one else
The King smiles and
Tells him congratulations

And the girl is surprised
She didn't know he was the Prince
He hugs her tight while she cries

Some mommas and daddies
Can't be there for their kids
It's not by their choice
The kids grow up without a parent's love
Sometimes no one can fill that place
And then they get stuck
Being all alone

Grandpa moved from in front of the same old window
He can't see the girl's face
Depressed that he can't see the beautiful view
He can't look that way at all
He moves in to another town

The Prince and the Princess
Go on about their lives
She's so happy to be by his side
Things have never been this good
She's no longer alone

Tattercoats

By:Wikimedia Commons

The Story of Brer Rabbit's House

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:

More Brer Rabbit: How Brer Rabbit Got a House

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. 

Story: The Princess and the Penguin

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

Link: The Greek king and the Physician Douban

Paul and Penelope

By: D-Stanley

Link: Flickr

Story: Destination Destroyed

It was the year 2076. Claire along with the people of Struny Island were fighting to keep their town in one piece. It was the middle of a civil war, on an island off the coast of Europe. The island was leading in the growth of a special fruit called strunberries. Strunberrys were used to heal wounds of any type. The island was controlled by President Hoffman.

Hoffman was secretly working on storing all the fruit away and killing each plant off as he went. He wanted to be in control of the island and the medical help it kept. Nellie was his faithful servant who kept this secret from everyone who lived on the island. President Hoffman was suffering from a sickness the strunberries couldn't cure. The president passed away leaving the people of the island in shock of what was to come.

Sean was the Vice President who thought he should fill in while Nellie was the President’s personal representative, who believed that she should take control of the island. This civil war had been in the making for many years. The island was divided in half, one half following their fearless leader Nellie, the other half following their leader Sean.

Sean wanted to keep peace but believed that their main concern should be for the environment. He believed that they killed off the produce with the pollution that was caused by machines and vehicles. Nellie wanted to be the best in every category no matter what the cost was. She wanted this to be the island with the highest exportation rate.

Sean told all the people of the island, “Nellie is a liar! I don’t have the hard evidence yet, but she has been helping President Hoffman keep secrets from us for many years.”

When Nellie heard this she went after Sean saying, “Sean is lying! He just wants to take over this island so he can get rid of all the machine shops and vehicles. Sean only cares about the environment, not the people who live on this island!”

This disagreement caused a civil war within the island. The civil war had been going on for a while when it finally made its way to the town that Claire lived in which was Superville.

Claire really didn't want her beautiful city destroyed. The people of Superville loved their city so much and it was filled with so much beautiful art and architecture. It would be a shame to demolish such a beautiful place. The people of Superville tried everything to detour the war from coming to their city. After their final attempt failed, Claire ran to the mountains and watched her beloved city become a pile of ash.

After the war moved on into another city Claire went back to the city to see if anything was left. She was crushed to find that the whole city was gone. There were bits and pieces of furniture and pictures everywhere she looked. When she found a couch that was still partly intact she sat there trying to calm herself down. She started sobbing and just couldn't stop. After a few minutes she had eventually cried herself into a deep sleep. Her sleep lasted a few years.

Finally, when she woke up she was strapped down to a metal table. There were I.V.'s in her arms and beeping machines all around her. She was scared and didn't know what was going on. Suddenly the doors opened and a robot nurse came in with a tray of supplies. The robot noticed that she was awake and hit the button on the side of her bed.

Her room was quickly filled with robots. When Claire talked to them, trying to figure out where she was and what was happening, the robots never responded. Finally, a bigger robot came into her room and noise filled the room. Claire noticed that the arm of the robot said BOB. The noise coming from the robots was a noise that Claire had never heard before. She tried to ask BOB what was going on and where she was when BOB answered, "We are the new inhabitants of Earth. You have been asleep for 25 years. There are no more left of your kind, and we are trying to figure out why that is. Do you know what happened to the rest of your species?"

This news frightened Claire. Looking down and shaking her head she said, "I have no clue what you are talking about. The last I knew we were in the middle of a Civil War. Why can't I leave here?"

The BOB responded, "You are here so we can monitor you. You can't leave until we figure out what happened to the rest of your species and why they disappeared."

Their conversation finished and the robots left her room. Every day after that day Claire refused to eat or communicate with anyone because she felt so out of place. One day she finally asked BOB what his name stood for.

BOB replied, "Biomedical Orthopedic Body."

BOB then went on to tell her that he was a robot that was controlled by something other than himself. Someone sent him orders of what to do and say. He was pretty much like any other robot body or droid. She asked who created him and BOB went on to tell her that the information she was asking for was classified. They went on and talked for a few hours until Claire was worn out. When Claire was trying to fall asleep, she couldn’t stop thinking about what was in her future. She worried about what will come next in her journey with BOB.





Author's note: I used the story of The Sleep of One Hundred Years. This story is about Onias who saw Jerusalem destroyed and then fell asleep for 100 years. The story of Onias is over 2000 years old and has been passed down since first century B.C.E. Onias fell asleep after his city was destroyed by a fire. When he awoke he knew no one and the place he was at seemed unsettling to him. He felt out of place because things had changed in the years he had been asleep. After he had gone into town he found out everything he knew was gone. He found some of his relatives that still lived near the town. When he talked to them he realized he could never live here because this is not the time and place he belonged in. I got the idea of a civil war from a series that I read a couple years ago called Divergent. I used Divergent and Hunger Games to lay a ground plot for the way I formatted this story. The major changes I made were changing the setting to be in a dystopia and making it in the future. My changes were based off the impression I got the first time reading through this story. I chose the image to represent BOB. I did this because BOB is Claire's only link to anything left after her sleep.


Bibliography:
Gertrude Landa, The Sleep of One Hundred Years 

 

The body of the Future.

Photo by: TexelGirl-Stock

Link:Robot Picture