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Re: help with story-telling
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Erin Holder
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Mar 07, 2004 14:28 PST
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I laughed all the way through this, out loud. That was a great read.
Thanks.
Erin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mirembe Nantongo" <nant-@comcast.net>
To: <lit-i-@topica.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 5:22 PM
Subject: [Lit-Ideas] help with story-telling
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When my son asks me to tell him a story I sometimes have to feel my way
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carefully. Normally required are good guys and bad guys and some sort of
fright followed by a fight (using swords, spears, guns or wits) and final
victory for the good guys. Unlife-like perhaps, but what the heck, the kid
is three. And it sounds easy enough, but the devil is definitely in the
details. Sometimes he will say, Tell me a story about Strong Dominic Who
Lives In A Cave On The Side Of A Mountain With His Pet Monkey Snuff And His
Pet Gorilla Bananas, at which point I am home free. Sometimes, unhelpfully,
he will just say, tell me a story. At these times I had better not start
with a Strong Dominic story when what he wants is a story about A Lone
Dinosaur Called Philip Who Lives With His Mom In New York, or about Sam The
Mountain Lion Who Fights Mad Hyenas (with a sword) Every Monday. So,
usually, lots of preliminary questions, which he answers readily, thereby
telling half the story himself and !
| | giving me a solid start, which of course works for me. Today, however,
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after much toing and froing, we had reached a point where we had Power
Rangers all over the place in a, to me, highly confusing scenario. Dominic
was in a touchy mood and this was a pre-nap story. I was anxious to get
everything just right so I could get on with my Arabic homework while he
slept. We had a Dominic Power Ranger (red) and a Pegasus Power Ranger
(blue), fair enough. But then suddenly we had two Hydra Power Rangers.
Hydras, at least in my experience, are always bad news, while Power Rangers
are normally good news. "So are the Hydra Power Rangers good or bad Power
Rangers?" I asked, cautiously. And he said, impatiently, "The Hydras are not
good Power Rangers or bad Power Rangers, they're happy Power Rangers."
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Dominic & Pegasus versus the
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Hydras-who-are-not-good-nor-are-they-bad-they-are-happy??
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Thrown for a loop by this sudden demand for/espousement of moral
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ambiguity, I muffed it sadly, fell into considerable disgrace and only
purchased homework-time by reading a long long long story written by someone
else (Jean de Brunhoff if you must know).
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As many will know, these are one- or two-minute stories, never long, they
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just have to be right. I am hoping that some kind Lit-Idear with experience
of or insight into 3 yr old minds will send me by return email a draft of
the correct version of the story outlined above so I may regain my lost
parental credibility. Live experimentation will be carried out and results
faithfully reported.
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Sincerely, MN
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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