Storybook Favorites: Mermaids, Hawai’i, and Group Therapy for “Monsters”

I was looking for three things while going through these storybooks: humor, creativity, and something unexpected. And I found three that did just that.

The first storybook to catch my attention MermaidsOnly.com is hilarious! The title grabbed my attention and immediately that “Farmers Only” song popped into my head. I liked the pictures that were used and the bios were pretty funny; they’re also typical bios would you see on a dating website. Also, the fact that one of the mermaids had a pet Great White is pretty fun to imagine. The introduction to the site did a good job of letting me know what I was looking at (even though the title already did) and was an entertaining read. The overall design of the site was really good – the formatting made it clear and easy to read.

The second storybook that caught my attention was The Dirt on Hawaii’s Elite – the Gossip Girl-esque theme was brilliant. I’ve never watched Gossip Girl or followed it, but this was still a very entertaining storybook. It was able to transcend the Gossip Girl influence so that it was still funny for someone like myself, someone who has only ever been peripherally aware of the show. The colors were beautiful and the writing was particularly good.

The third storybook is my favorite: Legendary Creatures Speak Up, A Human Encounters Convention. This is just amazing. I love the turning of the tables here – in the picture below, I highlighted my favorite bits from the introduction page.

Except from Legendary Creatures Speak Up.

Dr. Erik Yeti holding a group therapy session for his fellow legendary creatures was amazing – Courtney Kraken struggling with loneliness and Cornelius Dragon struggling with his guilt of not having saved his human friend in time. The transcriptions of the panels on each page are wonderfully done and the writing is clear and concise.

The UnTextbook

"The Lion and the Crane" [x]

For the Classical unit of Week Two, I am going to go with Aesop’s winter fables. I chose Aesop because his work is short and sweet and poignant. I love the way he tells a story.

For the Biblical unit of Week Three, I am going to go with Saints and Animals. I did this because the connections between, well, saints and animals is always something that I have been interested in, but never really had the opportunity to look into.

For the Middle Eastern unit of Week Four, I’ll be going with either Georgian Folktales or Turkish Fairy Tales. I’ve read a few of the Turkish Fairy Tales before this class, but I don’t know much about Georgian Folktales – so this will be a good opportunity to expand my horizons a bit.

For the Indian unit of Week Five, I am going to be looking at Indian fairy tales. Most because the titles of the tales caught my attention – The Lion and the Crane, The Magic Fiddle, etc. – all promise an interesting read.

Introduction

Hello! My name is Kirsten and I am an anthropology major, history minor. I’m a Navy veteran – coming from a long line of Navy vets. I was a Gunners Mate for four years and was stationed out in San Diego on the USS Rushmore, LSD-47.

 I have five rabbits: Jack Bunny, Stella Artois, Sidney Crosbun, Khan Noonien Singh, and Tywin Golden Gate Vanilla Thunder Lannister (my sister named him) – all of which are rescues and, with the exception of Stella, had been turned loose in various neighborhoods and parks to fend for themselves.

We are also fostering two more rabbits names Tweak and Ziggy because they require special attention.  So, adopt don’t shop.

If you're thinking about adopting a rabbit, or if you're just curious about bunnies in general, I've been using the Famous Last Words as a way to write a primer to rabbit care.

Ty-ty disapproves of anyone who doesn't adopt.

On to a few of my favorite things: I enjoy reading, writing, and sketching.

My favorite books are Hannibal by Thomas Harris, White Fang by Jack London, Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (I loved the film adaption of this, too, it was beautifully shot and the acting was great; it's the very realization of the trope "crack treated seriously").

I have a huge collection of DVDs – because I’m old and I enjoy having hard copies of things – and they’re all my favorite movies so I don’t know if I’d be able to pick just one. I enjoy war movies, superhero movies, rom-coms (romantic comedies), and the occasional bro comedy.  My favorite television shows are Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Last Comic Standing.

I enjoy comics – both Marvel and DC, though Batman will always hold a special place in my heart. My favorites are A Death in the Family, The Long Halloween, and Hush. I also love the Superman/Batman collections.

I listen predominantly to country and classic rock music. My favorites on the country side are Blake Shelton, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Reba, and Miranda Lambert. On the rock side, I love Kansas, Styx, the Steve Miller Band, AC/DC, Queen, Rush, and Journey. Fun fact: a biopic of Hank Williams is being made with Tom Hiddleston as the lead which should be pretty interesting. Tom Hiddleston is a fantastic actor and I can’t wait to see how he handles this role.  From the reviews that I've read so far, he did an excellent job!  Since I first posted this introduction, a clip has been released featuring Hiddleston singing "Move It On Over."

Storytelling for Week 1: The Cock and The Fox

Author's Note: This story is an adaption of the Aesop fable of the same name.  It tells the story of a fox getting stuck in a trap and, when he sees a rooster, tries to trick the rooster into letting him go.  The rooster doesn't fall for the trick and instead crows loudly in order to draw out the farmer who then kills the fox.  In the original fable, the story is told from the fox's point of view, but I decided to use the rooster's for my own re-telling.  Also note that I've capitalized a few words that normally wouldn't be, this is intentional.

The Cock and The Fox

It is during the darkest hour that Rooster wakes – the hour when the last of Moon’s light has faded from the stars and has yet to be replaced by Sun's.

Rooster stands and stretches his wings, pushing the sleep from his muscles. The night has been quiet, but he knows that silence doesn’t always mean safety. A lesson which not all of his kin has survived to learn.

So it is with a sense of caution that he leaves his hens to their sleep and ventures into the dark of the pre-dawn.  The air around him is still and heavy; not even the song birds have woken.

Rooster ventures first around his wooden hutch, the home given to him and his hens by the humans, before he turns to the long wooden fence that keeps the horses in. An old Clydesdale mare opens an eye and chuffs at him in greeting before she's drifting to sleep again.

Rooster is about to turn towards the gardens, to see what damage the wild rabbits had done in the night, when he hears a low curse – carried only to him by the barest breeze.

Rooster turns towards the noise, hears someone say: “Stupid, stupid.”  Rooster cocks his head to the side – he didn’t recognize the voice as belonging to any animal on his farm. And when he sees why he doesn’t recognize the voice, Rooster’s feathers stand on end and his claws reflexively curl into the dirt, ready to use his spurs if it came to that.

A fox, with his leg trapped in a snare of wire, lay in the dirt with a bloodied muzzle – obviously having tried to free himself from the wire with his teeth.

“Howdy, little rooster,” the fox says, trying to tug his leg free again even as he spoke; the wire only tightened. “Oh, dear rooster, won't you free me, little rooster? My ma’s sick with the Slow Death and I need to see ‘er ‘for it’s too late, dear rooster!”

Rooster caws out a laugh – he’s an old bird and he knows that nothing but lies falls from the lips of foxes – and says, “It’s too late for you both!”

Then Rooster stretches out his neck and, just as the first of Sun’s light touches the sky, he crows out a warning to the rest of the farm.

“Rancher’ll have your fur for his daughter,” Rooster laughs as Rancher tears open the door – holding his iron-and-fire stick.

“Cursed rooster,” the fox screams, ripping again at his leg as he tries to escape – then he’s stilled by the fire from the iron in Rancher’s hand.

Rancher nods to himself before grinning at Rooster; then he's calling out to his daughter and wife standing in the doorway.

Rooster turns from the dead fox and the humans, flying to the top of his little wooden house and facing east – where the sky is quickly turning red and pink – and crows his welcome to Sun as He rises over the Oklahoma horizon.

Rooster Crowing at Sunrise [source]

Bibliography: The Aesop for Children, Aesop, 2006, Gutenburg Ebook.

Blanchard and Norman: My Favorite Places

Norman, OK.  That saying "there's no place like home" is true.  I lived in many places during my childhood - the perks of having Navy parents - and traveled to many more after joining the Navy myself.  But, truly, there is no place like Oklahoma.

Bison bison.

Heartland Rabbit Rescue, Blanchard.  The Heartland Rabbit Rescue is home to over 100 rabbits who have been abandoned, surrendered, or confiscated from bad homes.  Many of these rabbits have health problems and behavioral issues that prevent them from being adopted out to homes that are not rabbit-savvy.

Levi, a silver rabbit who had been found wandering a neighborhood.

The rabbit pictured above, Levi, is a member of Grouchy Rabbit Row - a row of pens that hold a few of the rabbits with the more intense behavioral issues.  These are the rabbits that I work with - coaxing them into trusting me by using a soft tone, gentle head pats and scratches, and, if they’re in a good mood, picking them up and taking them to a couch for a good grooming (it’s molting season).

Hershel, an old Californian.

The reason that I love Heartland so much is because it represents hope - hope for a better life and a better home with someone who understands rabbits, who knows what they want and need, who knows that those wants and needs are far different from either a cat’s or a dog’s and will love them anyway.