Reading Notes: Part B, The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking

For today's reading note, I focused on the Jataka Tales. In particular, I read the story The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking by Ellen C. Babbitt. The story begins with two wild geese who are looking for food. As they are flying around talking with each other, they spot a turtle that was sitting next to a pond. They stop and talk to the turtle and become acquainted. They do this for a few days and eventually become good friends with the turtle. They become such good friends with the turtle, they want to take him to their home that is very beautiful, but far away (this seemed suspicious to me). The turtle responds by saying I would love to go, but I cannot fly. Therefore, the geese come up with a solution to the problem. They say, turtle if you can keep your mouth shut, we will be able to fly you to this new home. The turtle agrees, and the geese grab a stick and both hold an end with their mouth and instruct the turtle to hold onto the middle portion of the stick with his mouth. All is going well at this point, the two geese and turtle are flying to their new home. However, as they are flying, a group of children sees the geese and turtle flying together. They all converse, saying wow have you ever seen such a thing? This is crazy. The turtle somewhat offended, says, so what if my friends want to carry me? At this very moment, the turtle falls to his death. The turtle was not able to keep his mouth shut. I believe this story demonstrates to us, that there is a moment to speak, and a moment to keep silent. For potential future stories, I will be changing around the characters! I would like to keep an animal theme. Therefore, I will need to think about what animals I would like to use for this story. 

The Turtle: GoodFreePhotos