Moses, the Toddler Criminal: Image
The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog
This is a very interesting origin story of why dogs and cats don't get along. This story really puts dog through the ringer compared to cat, who pretty much instantly finds food and shelter. It's also a pretty sad story that paints a picture of spurned best friends. If I retell this story, I'd definitely give it a happier ending that shows that cats and dogs can get along.
The Water-Babe
The mental image of putting a 3-year old child on trial is hilariously absurd to me, even though it's pretty disturbing that they were ready to murder Moses if the outcome was unfavorable. I could definitely have a lot of fun retelling this story in modern context as something like a hyper-exaggerated, Law and Order-style retelling of a Supreme Court case putting a toddler (who also happens to be the adopted child of the President of the United States) on trial for something ridiculous.
I could tell it from the point of view of Moses' lawyer, dealing with his own bewilderment due to the ridiculousness of having to defend a toddler in court, even though everyone else around him is acting as if this is completely normal. I could also try to capture it from a more removed perspective and frame the story as a news broadcast covering the story of Moses' trial. This perspective would change the writing style to that of more of a teleprompter script in order to keep the different lines of dialogue between anchors and reporters in check. Or maybe I could make it especially ridiculous and tell the story from a third-person perspective, following a pair of cops that try to interrogate Moses after his "arrest."
There are a lot of possibilities with this story, all of which could be used to create some very absurd humor, and I think that I could make something very entertaining that riffs off of the subject matter.
Bibliography - The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog & The Water-Babe from Jewish Fairy Tales by Gertrude Landa (1919)
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