The Snail and the Whale

Last Sunday, I attended to my 3 year old nephew who just woke up. As he woke up, he asks for milk and he also asks me to open the television. So I did open it, turn the channel to Disney Junior and I lay beside him on the bed and we watched the TV together.

What was airing on the TV that time that I opened it was a whale and there's also a snail on its tale. Cartoons or animated films can still caught up my attention even at this age so I did enjoy watching the movie with my nephew. We were talking animatedly as we watched it.

Anyway, I did enjoy watching it and I have a few realizations after watching it. You can treat it as my reflection from the film and please allow me to share my learning to you through this article.

I wasn't really able to watch the beginning of the film and since it's an adventure of the whale and the snail, I just searched that on the net and it turns out that it's title was actually "The Snail and the Whale".

The Snail and the Whale

• 2003 - It was actually a children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler.

• 2004 - It won the Early Years award for the best pre-school book.

• 2005 - It won the Blue Peter award for Best Book to Read Aloud.

• 2007 - It won the Giverny award for Best Science Picture Book.

• It has also been adapted into an unabridged audiobook, a stage play and translated into British Sign Language.

• 2019 - The Snail and the Whale film was released.

The Plot

A sea snail lives alone with a snail flock, on a smooth black rock by the docks, and longs to see the big, wide world. After she writes an advert for a "lift wanted around the world" using her trail, a kind black humpback whale arrives one moonlit night and offers to take her travelling around the world. The aquatic duo see many sights along their way until one sunny Summer's morning, the humpback whale, confused by the sound of a group of racing speedboats, swims into a bay and is unfortunately left beached by the retreating tide.

In an effort to help her only aquatic friend, the snail herself crawls to a nearby school in the bay, and writes "Save The Whale!" in her slimy trail on the blackboard. The school's children and teacher immediately fetch the emergency services, and the local people and the fire department help to keep the abandoned whale wet until the tide finally turns, and the snail and the whale themselves are able to re-float and swim safely away from the villagers.

Together, the snail and the whale return to the snail's home in the dock, where the other members in the snail flock are impressed by the two travelers' tales. The whale holds out his tail, allowing the other snails to crawl on board. Then, as the sun sinks behind the surface of the ocean, the kind humpback whale takes the entire snail flock away to travel around the world. As the kind whale swims on the surface of the water, all nine snails hanging onto his tail sing out loud to the sea.

Source: wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snail_and_the_Whale

Three Things I Learned from the Film

1. Friendship despite differences.

The whale and the snail surely have a huge different. Have you ever seen a whale hanging out with a snail? They say birds with the same feather flocks together and it's somehow true.

But the film proved to me, to us, that despite being different, it's not a thing or a hindrance to create friendship or other relationship. We don't need to be same to be friends. We do not need to believe on the same thing at all times. We don't need to be the same. What we need is to support and respect each other despite the differences that we have.

The community in here was an example of this. People hanging out together, or rather, mingling with one another despite the age, gender, race, nationality and all that differences that we have here. We are united as a community who loves bitcoin cash despite coming from different places, or country, having different cultures and traditions and the like.

1. Helping on your own little ways.

On the part where the whale swam too near the shore and got stuck in there, the snail did try its best to save the whale. On the film, there's a part there where it tried to push the big whale even if the snail is too small to do that.

That was such so impossible. But the snail didn't give up. The snail looks around until it found a school nearby and it uses its tale to write "save the whale" on the blackboard to seek for help.

What I saw in that scene was the willingness and the eagerness of the snail to save the whale. The snail was literally too small to save the whale. Maybe its feeling helpless that time, but it still helps in its own little way.

What it did at first didn't actually help at all. But it still find a way. And through its tail, the only thing that it have, it was able to save the whale.

So it's the same for us. If we want to help, we can surely help. Small help is still a help after all. Like the snail, let's give what we can give to whoever that person that is in need. Our help doesn't need to be extravagant. Just like what they say, "it's the thought that counts".

1. Helping one another.

This is kind of related to my second realization.

It was the time when the villagers, the firemen, teacher, and the students gathered up, and together, they saved the whale.

There are things that we can't do all alone. We often need other people to be at our side, to be at help to us, so that we can get things done.

The film portrays how the people helped each other to be successful in doing that certain thing. So just like the people in there, let us be a helping hand to one another. Let us push each other forward, look out for one another and together, we'll reach success.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

So I guess I have to end it here.

Children's book are usually books where we can get a lot of learning. We may think that we are too old for that but we can still surely learn from them. After all, there is no age in learning.

The film may be for kid but it reaches me and brings me some realizations that I was able to share with you.

I hope you enjoy reading this and I also hope that you were able to learn from it the same way I did. Thank you so much for reading this article.

=)