Indian Epics by Reid

Microfiction versions of The Elephant Girly-face 6 Word Story Elephant hear, elephant do, it's simple! Two Sentence Story The sweet, sweet elephant can quickly change His emotions, influenced by all, are great in range Author's Note: These microfictions are based off  The Elephant Girly Face by Ellen C. Babbitt. Going into these, I had only ever read one other microfiction, and never written one. Writing them based on an already short Jataka tale made it much easier. I tried to keep only the main point as to make it as short as possible, and I think it worked out pretty well! Lucy the Elephant

Today, my favorite story out of the second part of Babbitt's Jataka Tales was The Elephant Girly Face. I had read another student's story that was based off it, but hadn't read the original yet. In this story, king's elephant named Girly-face is known as one of the most peaceful and good elephants. One night outside her walls, some robbers talked about killing and stealing from people, so Girly-face assumed this is how they should act as well. The next morning, she kills her handler, then kills another person. The king is curious as to why, so he sends wise men to study him. In the end, they find out that if Girly-face is surrounded by good, he acts good. If surrounded by bad, he acts good. So after sending people to talk about how to be good and kind by him, he becomes the best elephant there ever was. This story does a great job covering how people act in the surroundings they grow up in. Someone born into a life of crime may never know what a life outside of crim...

These short tales were a blast to read! Going through each one was a journey on it's own, but The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking was by far my favorite. Not only was a lesson for the kids who may have this told to them, but it was just plain funny (sorry turtle). The story follows a simple event. A turtle is met by two geese who offer him an amazing new home to live. All he has to do is keep his mouth shut. At first I thought (based on the title) that this turtle would brag all about his new home, and that his showing off would come back to bite him. In this story, it's not the case because not talking meant not opening your mouth, literally. On the next day, the geese come by with a stick between them allowing the turtle to grab on with his mouth. As long as he doesn't talk, he wont open his mouth and fall. While flying over a town, the kids comment on how ridiculous this turtle is, and the turtle feels a bit offended so he begins to talk back. But talking back mea...