My made up bed time story for Max

When I was asked by the little boy I nanny to read him a story I asked if instead I could make up a story of my own. I asked him to pick what the story would be about and how old he wanted to main character to be. I am not sure why I chose him to decide those parts of my bedtime story but I suppose it is because age can change everything in a story. Anyways he asked to hear a story about a dinosaur and of course because he is four years old he wanted the dinosaur to be the same age.

Slowly I say to him, once.... upon.... a time... there lived a wonderful happy family of dinosaurs that roamed the open fields of Bozeman, amongst all the other types of dinosaurs. This particular family of dinosaurs had a mommy, a daddy, a son and two daughters. The son was the oldest and the only one of the family without beautiful blue scales that glistened in the sun and shown so bright that they could be seen even in outer space.His mother, father, and sisters had the most vibrant scales in the valley and were all very proud of their beauty.

One cloudy day as the family walked across the field to get a drink of water at the pond Little Max noticed a small butterfly floating across the sky followed by a trail of the shiniest dust. Max started following the butterfly with great curiosity. (I used this word in particular because yes the 4 year old boy used curiosity in context daily)

After following her for some time he asked, "Excuse me, where did you get your dust?"

"Well I didn't get it any where, I was born with it. It's beautiful isn't it?" she replied.

"Yes it is. May I have some? The rest of my family have wonderful scales sparkly just like your dust. Maybe then I can also have blue scales." Max timidly said to the butterfly.

"This dust is mine though. I was born with it and it looks good on me, if I loose any I will not be as beautiful."

Max lowered his head in sadness and turned to walk back to his family nearing the water hole. After a few steps Max felt a raindrop fall onto his nose. And another and another. He heard a soft scream and saw the butterfly begin to fall to the ground. Oh no butterfly, I have to help her get out of the rain thought Max. Bravely Max ran towards the poor helpless butterfly and scooped her up with his paw. He bolted towards the only tree in the field and made it just in time. All the sudden the sky seemed to open up and release every drop of rain it had.

Max placed the butterfly down on the ground under the safety of the giant umbrella tree and looked to see if she was hurt. Her wings had gotten wet so she could not get up and had fainted. But brave Max waited with her until the ski cleared up and the sun came out, when finally she woke up and saw her hero, Max.

"You saved me, dinosaur, you saved my life from the rain." She whispered. "Thank you Max for being so nice and helping me." The butterfly flew up from the ground and began circling Max. Suddenly there was a giant cloud of blue dust that was seen from all across the field and when it settled all the dinosaurs saw the shiniest bluest dinosaur of all. The butterfly still looked beautiful and made Max blue like his family. Max and the butterfly became best friends and always shared with everyone.


After I finished the story and left Max (The boy I nanny) to sleep I realized that I had just proved the point of our class, all stories are retellings . I had just told Max a made up story of my own that was really a retelling of multiple stories. The first few that came the mind were The Rainbow Fish, The Ugly Duckling, and characters from Peter Pan, and the Land Before Time. Because Max does not know or understand that all stories have been told and that we only write them again but with different details, he thought the story was amazing and new.