Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

For this weeks reading notes I am going to focus on The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart by Marie L. Shedlock. I really enjoyed this story. It is simplicity and its lesson are very nice. I think this story is a nice example of less is more and often powerful. I really thought it was interesting to see that the crocodile thought he was the clever one and the author carried that well, but then you saw the monkey's ability to out think the croc in the face of adversity. The crocodiles plan was to take advantage of what the monkey wanted however the Monkey was able to take advantage of the fact that the Crocodile was a bit gullible. However, the Croc did betray the Monkey's trust even in the food chain trust is a sacred vow. The setting reminded me of scenes from the Jungle Book, the original cartoon don't get me started with the remakes, that setting and and I kind of pictured the croc from the movie as the crocodile and the monkey I pictured as Baloo I know he I a gorilla but I still in my head see a similarity. I will comment on a thought of mine, I feel like not a lot of stories anymore, good ones at that, often start with the phrase "once upon a time". My thinking behind this is that they typically fall short or it is used too much and leads you through a fairy tale that has a happy ending. Although this has a dash of fairy tale to it, it does not have a happy ending. Which I like! Too many stories these days have to end exactly how you want them too and I think life never ends how you planned always be prepared. When I finished this story I was trying to figure out what the moral of the story was and I could not think of it. Luck would have it that when I googled "monkey riding a crocodile" I found my answer Moral Stories, "Don't underestimate yourself, there are bigger fools in this world". Which is something to definitely contemplate.

I think this would be the "American" Version of this story. 

"The Raccoon and the Gator".

Image by Richard Jones (Trends Post)