Finders Keepers

Rating

Maybe just stop asking jerks for advice.

It's kind of irritating. It almost reminds me of an Aesop's fable.

There's two dogs who find a bone. They argue about who should get the bone. They can't come to a decision, so they ask a farmer. The farmer says, "Help my with my cart first." So they help him, and then the farmer's like, "Psych! Not gonna help you out at all! Have some hay!" And then a goat shows up. And they ask for help with the bone, and the goat says, "Okay, let me eat the hay." And then he eats the hay, and then says, "Psych! Not gonna help you out!" The same thing happens with a haircutter, who cuts their hair and then says he doesn't care about their bone. Then a big dog comes, and the big dog says, "Why don't you show me the bone?" and then they show it to him, and the dog says, "I'll just take it." So they attack the dog as he tries to take it. And at the end, they just share the bone between the two of them.

They could have come to that conclusion earlier, by themselves, but they needed to ask other people for advice. The other people offered to give them advice, as long as they helped them with something, but then as soon as they finished being helped, the other people went back on their word, which is stupid. Basically, the message is, "Don't trust other people to give you advice, because they just want something for themselves." But if everyone acted that way, society would crumble.

Message

Everyone's in it for themselves.

Authors
Illustrators
Publication Year
1951
Age Range
2-5
Number of Pages
32
Number of words on a typical page
65