Week 14: Jataka Tales: Babbitt (Reading Diary B)

This week I read Babbitt's Jataka Tales unit from the Un-Textbook. The stories I'm going to talk about from the second half of the reading are The Golden Goose, How the Monkey Saved his Troop, and The Elephant and the Dog. (Story source: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, illustrated by Ellsworth Young (1912).)

The story of the Golden Goose was what I expected from the White Elephant story that I talked about in the first reading diary this week. The goose was so kind to help the mother and daughters by giving them golden feathers to sell. Not only did the goose give the women one feather, but he continued to return and give more and more feathers to the family until they were rich. Of course, it was not enough for the mother and she caught the goose and forcibly plucked all the feathers.  I was so glad that the woman didn't benefit from her violence towards the goose, as all of the goose's gold feathers turned white when the mother stole them.

The next story I'm going to talk about was How the Monkey Saved his Troop. I really liked this story, not only because of the monkey chief's ingenuity but also the respect and honor the king showed the monkey. I was a little frustrated by how the king just took over the entire tree and tried to keep all the monkeys after it and ordered his arches to shoot any that tried to come down. However, I thought the monkey chief was really creative to make a bridge out of his body for his entire troop to escape on. I was so glad that when the king saw how the monkey saved his troop, the king decided to help and take care of the monkey for the rest of his life.

My favorite story from this entire unit was the story of the Elephant and the Dog. I love friendships between different animals. And this one was so sweet. I loved how happy the dog and the elephant were together and I felt so bad for the elephant when the dog was sold to the farmer. I was so happy though when the king saw how sad the elephant was and decided to pay to bring the dog back. The dog and elephant's reunion with the elephant lifting the dog over his head was so adorable and I'm so glad they lived together happily after that.