 |
Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
|
|||||||
 |
Uchida,
Yoshiko
TWO FOOLISH CATS New York : M. K. McElderry Books, 1987 IL K-3, RL 3.5 ISBN 0689503970 |
|
|
The book The Two Foolish Cats by Yoshiko Uchida introduces us to Daizo, the big brave cat and Suki, the small skinny cat. Both are good friends and live together in a forest in Japan. These two friends are feared by the mice and birds that they prey upon daily. One day the cats decided to try to hunt some mice, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful. Then the cats decided to try to catch some fish, but once again they were unsuccessful, and even disappointed. Soon after though they spotted two rice cakes lying in the field not too far off, so they raced closer to find that one rice cake was large and one was small. Both cats naturally wanted the larger one and each believed that he deserved it. The cats started to physically fight over this and were stopped by a badger who commanded them to go to the wise monkey, so that he could resolve their dispute. They eagerly went to the wise monkey and resolved their dispute, though in a surprising way and in which the birds and mice enjoyed. This story like most folktales has a nice moral for the reader to enjoy. I chose this book because it is a simple story with a meaning that is universal in nature, but which is presented through a nice traditional Japanese tale. (Nadine Aguilar, cali4nyabreeze@yahoo.com, college student) |
| SUBJECTS:
Folklore -- Japan.
Cats -- Folklore. |
Except where
otherwise noted, content on this site is
