Kendal's Blog


For this week's post, I read the last three entries on the blog of one of my classmates, Kendal. In her entries, Kendal had a lot of interesting stuff to say on the fairy tales we have read, including the "Cinderella" and the Trickster stories, as well the Kenyan stories told to us by Dr. K'Olewe.

In her most recent entry on Trickster stories, Kendal talks about Charles Perrault's "Little Thumbling" and a story from Louisiana called "The Singing Bones." She points out that in both of these stories, the main characters are able escape from danger because of their quick wits. In "Little Thumbling" in particular, the ability of Thumbling to not talk, but listen plays an important part in helping him to eventually save the day. Far from indicating stupidity, as his family suggests, Thumbling's ability to listen seems to help to make him smarter, something which I also think is a really cool aspect of this story.

In her entry on Kenyan fairy tales, Kendal argues that these tails are unique in their ability to stimulate our imaginations. I definitely agree with this, though I would argue that a big part of it was Dr. K'Olewe's abilities as a story teller. I would be curious to hear a really good story teller telling some of the other stories that we've only read so far to see how they stack up to the Kenyan tales. I definitely agree with Kendal, however, that the interactive components of the tales made it much easier to really get into them.

Finally, in Kendal's entry on "Cinderella," she talks about the story's message of "good things happen to those who wait." I'm not sure I would agree that this lesson necessarily applies in  real life to gaining material wealth, but I do certainly agree that good things come (even if not in form of riches) to those who are good and true to themselves.

Overall, I think that Kendal's blog posts are really good. They are well written and she chose some cool pictures to go along with them. Great job, Kendal!
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