Hello everyone. Continuing our beaver-themed week, today we’re going to write stories about beavers. First of all, if you haven’t already, go read yesterday’s post, which contains all sorts of interesting facts about beavers, a picture of a beaver, and a movie about a beaver. We’re guessing that even if you already know a lot about beavers, you’ll learn a thing or two.
Once you’ve read that post, pick one thing you’ve learned about beavers and use it to write a story. For example, I just learned that beavers’ teeth keep growing throughout their lives and that beavers have to gnaw and gnaw and gnaw to keep their teeth from getting too long. I think I’ll write a story using that fact.
Here goes:
Rodney Beaver
Rodney Beaver had a problem. Like all beavers, his teeth grew constantly, and so, like all beavers, he had to keep on gnawing down trees to keep them from getting too long.
But Rodney’s teeth grew faster than most beavers’ teeth grew. In fact, his teeth grew so fast that he had to gnaw down trees all day long. And all night long. Rodney had to gnaw so much that he seldom got to sleep, which made him incredibly cranky.
Because Rodney gnawed down so many trees, he had a lot of wood to use in making his beaver dam, which meant that Rodney had the biggest, fanciest beaver dam in the forest.
Everyone wanted to be like Rodney.
But Rodney wanted to be just like everyone else.
Because he wanted to go to the beaver parties and compete in the beaver underwater races and slap his beaver tail against the mud while relaxing in the sunshine.
Not once in his life had Rodney ever relaxed in the sunshine, and he was getting tired of it.
One day, a sensible beaver named Renee came along and said, “Maybe instead of gnawing trees to keep your teeth from getting too long, you should try gnawing something else instead?”
Rodney thought about that for a second, and it made sense. And so he decided to try.
Rodney tried gnawing on a boulder, but it was too hard.
And then he tried gnawing on the door of a pickup truck, but it cut his gums.
Finally, he tried gnawing on a mouthful of pebbles. It wasn’t exactly fun, but it seemed to do the trick.
By gnawing on pebbles for just a few minutes each day, Rodney could keep his teeth short enough to do the things he’d always wanted to do.
He went to his very first beaver party. He won the underwater beaver races. And he relaxed in the sunshine. But only for a few minutes.
Because then it started to rain.
And that, my friends, is the story of Rodney Beaver. See…all you need to write a story is one fact or idea. I picked teeth that never stop growing, but it could have been anything.
Now it’s your turn to write a story about beavers. What will your story be about? Beaver dams? Beaver’s flat tails? Their ability to swim really fast? The nictitating membranes in their eyes (if you don’t know what this means, you probably didn’t read yesterday’s post)?
Instead of sending your stories to me in an email as you’ve done in the past, go ahead and publish your story in the comments to this post. That way, everyone can see your story right away. If you want to attach a picture, you can, but keep in mind that tomorrow’s prompt is going to be about drawing pictures of beavers, so you might want to save your drawings or photos until tomorrow.
Thanks for reading my story. I can’t wait to read yours!
Once upon a time, there was a big beaver named Ed. He was big because he had built the biggest lodge in all of Canada and was able to store the most branches there in his underwater refrigerator. Ed liked swimming down to his underwater refrigerator every few hours to gnosh on birch branches, but felt there was probably something more to life. One day, his neighbor Betty (the Bunny) came to visit and told him that most animals don’t love eating trees. They ate things like carrots, and lettuce, and apples, and bananas, and SOMETIMES EVEN OTHER ANIMALS.
That sounded crazy. After that Ed got insomnia, lost his appetite, and lost a lot of weight. Now he was so skinny that he couldn’t keep warm when he went swimming. And then his teeth started growing. Longer and longer. Until they reached his feet. Betty, alarmed, told him he better do something, otherwise he’d end up just a sliver of beaver pelt attached to some gigantic teeth (not a good look). The only solution was to start eating wood again. So he did. It turned out, there really wasn’t anything more to life. Just eating branches out of his underwater refrigerator. Who knew?
Wow, Robbi. I admire your hard-hitting realism. Insomnia, existential doubt, bitter embrace of the status quo. Three cheers for honesty, but did you miss the memo that this is a blog for kids?
Sometimes things happen when I write, and I can’t stop them. Actually, it got a lot darker and I had to delete a bunch of it. Believe it or not, this is the happy version.
Poor Ed.
TWO BEAVERS
By Travis Stotts
Once there were two beavers. Their mission was to get to a lake. The only problem was, it was 50 miles away!
So, they came up with a plan…They would steal a logger’s bulldozer! “Come on Lee! We don’t have all day!” Leah said.
“If we’re going to steal a bulldozer, I got to sharpen my teeth!” said Lee.
“What for? “Asked Leah.
“For defense, of course!” Lee shouted.
“Against whom?” she asked.
“The loggers! Don’t you think they will notice their bulldozer being driven off into the wild blue yonder!!?”
“Whatever. Let’s go!”
And so, they went to the logging camp. But, the bad news was…when they got there, there was no bulldozer.
The good news was they had a helicopter. The second bad news was it was heavily guarded by riflemen.
“Good thing I sharpened my teeth.” said Lee.
“What? “asked Leah.
“You’ll find out.” Lee answered.
Suddenly, Lee sprang into the air! He gripped his teeth on one of the rifles. He twisted the gun into a knot!
“Good idea!” said Leah. She sprang into the air, too, and she began whapping the riflemen with her tail. Finally, when all the rifleman lay knocked out on the ground, the beavers opened the door of the helicopter and got in.
They realized that a mob of angry loggers had gathered to take back the helicopter.
“How do you work this thing?” yelled Lee.
“I don’t know, I guess you just press one of the biggest buttons,” answered Leah.
Lee pressed a giant button. “Nope that one doesn’t work, it just slices trees in half.”
“Uh, why don’t you try the smallest one?” Leah suggested.
“Nope, that one turns it off!”
“Why don’t you try pressing it again to turn it on?” asked Leah.
“OK, well that turns it back on.”
“Try the middle button.”
“Yay, we are finally up in the air,” yelled Lee.
As they flew by the angry mob of loggers, they could see them shouting and throwing axes in the air.
“We will deliver it back once we finish our dam and our lodge at the lake,” shouted Lee. They flew on for two hours until they found the lake. As the helicopter landed, Lee said, “well, here it is.”
Leah asked, “are you really going to give the helicopter back?”
Lee said, “I’m thinking about it…”
To be continued….
HOLY COW this is an awesome story.
First: Beavers named Lee and Leah. This story just can’t go wrong.
Second: Proper use of “whom”. 10 points!
Third: That there is such a thing as “second bad news.” I appreciate that bad news can be divided up into discrete chunks, and isn’t all just lumped together as one big “bad news”.
Fourth: Excellent advice: when in doubt, push all the buttons.
Fifth: This story is FULL of great illustration options. Can’t wait to see the accompanying picture you come up with, Travis!
Sixth: There’s nothing like a good cliffhanger to keep people itching for more. We might just have to make next week’s theme be “Riflemen, Loggers, Helicopters and Heated Conflict.”
Love this story, Travis!