We have been learning about how to determine the theme of a narrative story.
Theme means the message, or the big idea, that the author is trying to communicate through the story. A story’s theme usually has something to do with ideas about how people should act or treat each other, or other big lessons about life.
A good narrative story can have several themes, and themes are open to different opinions.
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“Zen Shorts” by Jon J. Muth
Below is a video of a short story from the book Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth.
This beautiful book collects folktales from Japan and retells them in the form of a picture book that features a giant panda named Stillwater and three young siblings named Michael, Addy, and Karl.
The story below is called “A Heavy Load” and in the book Stillwater the panda tells it to Karl after Karl has spent the whole day being grumpy about how his older brother Michael sometimes bosses him around.
Listen to the story (read by Chloe!), and see if you can come up with a theme that it might be trying to communicate:
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What do you think the theme of the story “A Heavy Load” might be? Use details from the story to support your idea.
What were your thoughts about the story?
Do you have a time when you were carrying “a heavy load” that you needed to put down?
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