Reading Diary: Week 6: Brer Rabbit

Brer Rabbit, by Joel Chandler Harris

I had to pick the Brer Rabbit stories! Mostly because my family loves Splash Mountain; it's a tradition now, any time we're in Disney, we have to ride it--preferably more than once. And we always tell the story of the time it rained and we got to ride seven times in a row. I mentioned it in my reading choices post a while back. So I'm interested to know more of the stories and history behind the ride, and if there are any discrepancies in the tales.

 ("Please, don't throw me into that briar patch!")

I know the instructions say to listen to the story because of the odd dialect, but I thought I'd try to read it anyway...and, yeah. There's no way. It's definitely an adjustment even listening to the story! Even though it's read in a more familiar dialect, it's still pretty southern, and since the character's are all "Brer" something, sometimes it's hard to keep track of who is doing what when I'm listening.

 "Ol' Man Nod' was writin' on my eyelids..." I've never heard this idiom before, and I love it! I love hearing the different ways people describe everyday events (like falling asleep) in different areas or different eras. It's also fun to try and create your own, something I'd like to try with my writing.

Turns out, the story Splash Mountain is based off of, How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox, is pretty accurate! They added more details for the ride, of course, and the whole Zipadeedooda thing, but the basic plot and ending is the same. It might be interesting to re-write this story, with a different animal, or do a sci-fi/fantasy thing...

In the story of Why Mr. Opossum Loves Peace, two animals, the opossum and the coon, see a dog coming, and the oppossum asks the coon, "What are you gonna do?" and the coon says, "I'm gonna stay here next to you! What are you gonna do?" I like the idea of having several characters all rely on each other to do something to escape a villain, but they don't tell each other, and it backfires.