Week 11 Reading Diary, Continued: More English Tales

As I continued into week 11 I decided to stick with reading More English Fairy Tales in the British unit. I really enjoyed all of the stories I read yesterday so I thought I would just continue to learn even more about the unique fairy tales. The readings for this unit come from More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, published in 1894 as a sequel to his English Fairy Tales of 1890.

The Three Wishes: When I first looked at the title I imagined something like a genie. I soon learned that I was kind of right in thinking it was a genie. The story is about a fairy granting a person who is less fortunate three wishes. However, the wishes the man asked for were not nearly as extravagant as I was expecting. I think that the ending was kind of a let down, but I still found it to be enjoying to read.

The King o’ the Cats: This story really excited me because I saw that it was about cats. As I have already explained, I love stories about animals. This story took a bit of a depressing turn with the death of someone in the story and the cats crying together in a depression. It was not really that happy story that I was expecting when I first began reading it.

Week 11 Reading Diary: English Fairy Tales

For week 11 we were instructed to read stories from the British unit. For my reading diary I decided to focus on English Fairy Tales. The readings for this unit come from English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, published in 1890, which he followed with More English Fairy Tales in 1894.

The Story of the Three Little Pigs: I am sure that everyone has heard the story of the three little pigs at some point in my life. For me it has always been my favorite. I have two older sisters and we used to always call ourselves the three little pigs. That is why this story was one of my favorites in the unit. What was particularly great about this story is that it gave me the chance to hear the story a lot more in depth. I had never realized how violent it is. It talks about eating the pigs and boiling and eating a wolf. I am now surprised it is such a popular children’s story.

Mr. Fox: This is a story that I was not familiar with already, but it turned out to be a very interesting one. I assumed Mr. Fox was an actual fox and I was surprised to find out otherwise when I began reading the story. The story was tragic and gruesome. It reminded me of a serial killer. It was not at all what I expected when I began to read this story. I am glad that she confronted Mr. Fox in the end for killing all of those women.