Reading Notes: Saints and Animals, Part B

    The only story that I read and liked was The Wolf-Mother of Saint Ailbe by Abbie Farwell Brown. From start to finish, this story made you want to continue reading it. It was filled with many characters that were meaningful to the story. The story had many twists and turns while reading it; you would think it was about to end or stop and then something different would happen. There was great character development with Saint Ailbe. He started off an unwanted baby, then he was raised by wolves, and then he was the baby of a prince and princess. This led him to become wise and grateful. The setting of the story also interested me; there was a forest and a castle. I also liked how he was reunited with his old wolf family. Saint Ailbe was able to protect his second family as well as be able to see them. The story was full of love and care to which made it great.

Saint Ailbe from the Story

The other stories did not interest me, as most of them were ballads. I found them boring to read and I got lost in most of them. There was one story that wasn’t just boring; it was excessive, and it bugged me. This story is The Fish Who Helped Saint Gadwall by Abbie Farwell Brown. There was so much imagery in the story that it took away from the story as a whole. I did not feel as if I were reading along with a story, I felt as if I were describing the scene of the story majority of the time. The story was 1300 words and easily could have been 500. There was not a lot of action or storyline which is what made it uninteresting.

After reading these stories, I know I don’t want to make my story a ballad and I don’t want to use too much imagery. I do however like the idea of stealing and reuniting. It would be interesting to somehow incorporate that into my story.