Extra Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

This week, I finished the Tejas Stories unit. I really enjoyed the story of How Sickness Entered the World. I thought it was a great explanation for why there are so many illnesses that afflict the world. When the boys beat the snake upon their arrival to the tree, my heart sank because I knew that they’d really stepped in it. I can only imagine how the medicine man was feeling when he found out what they had done.

Another story that I really enjoyed was Why the Dog’s Ears Flop, which I thought was a cute but tragic story of how dogs’ ears became floppy. Dogs are such a fun part of our lives that it’s hard to imagine them doing us any wrong. The turn of events in this story shows that when we first brought dogs into our lives, they were not just to play fetch with and cuddle with on cold nights. They were expected to earn their keep by protecting the humans that provided for them. The dog in this story learns a valuable lesson about trusting others, and we must all be wary of those who might try to trick us into allowing the ones we care about to get hurt.

(A labrador puppy with floppy ears)

Reading Diary A: Tejas Legends

For this week, I read the Tejas Legends unit, one of the cultures that I'm using in my Storybook Project. I really enjoyed these stories, as they are fun to read since they are targeted to children.

The first story that I really enjoyed was How the North Wind Lost His Hair, which explains how the North Wind lost his hair in a fight with the South Wind. When the North Wind loses the fight, he flees, and the South Wind comes away with his hands full of hair. When he drops it, it covers the trees and is known today as Spanish moss. When the North Wind comes back to the south, he quickly leaves because he sees his hair and is reminded that he lost. I thought this story was a very interesting lesson about why a certain plant grows the way it does and why it is always so warm near the gulf.

The other story that I really liked was Why the Woodpecker Pecks, which is one of the stories that I’m basing my Storybook on. This story tells how a tribe of Indians is transformed into woodpeckers because they become addicted to the mescal plant’s hallucinogenic properties and neglect their children. All of the children leave to find food on their own, and eventually one of the mothers notices they are gone, but the tribe cannot find their children. They are turned into birds and must try to find their children in trees, which is why they peck at them with their beaks. I really liked this story because it shows that drugs can be a powerful thing when used incorrectly, and that neglectful parents should be punished for abandoning their children.

(A woodpecker in a tree)