Storybook Favorites
The Girls of Spring
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| Narcissus by John William Waterhouse from Wikipedia |
The Girls of Spring incorporates both Persephone, a Greek goddess who I had heard of before, and Sita, who I had not. Sita is the wife of Rama, from the Indian epic Ramayana. The title did not make me think that the story would be about a Greek goddess and an Indian princess who are each trying to overcome being taken from their homelands. However, I understand the author’s title choice, as both characters’ names and stories deal with springtime. It would have been better, in my opinion, to paint them as women instead of girls.
The introduction did not go into much detail about the origin stories of each character, but some sections had author’s notes, and it was easy to keep up with the plot. It was nice to see the author making her own correlations between these stories from different mythologies and combining them into one. The layout and design of the page are fitting to the story, as it is a green page with blossoms on top. The story was divided between an introduction and three sections, but it appears that the author inserted these divisions according to the length of the text and not actually to appropriate points in the story. Since the story was short, it was easy to comprehend it as a whole, but this method would be disastrous in a longer reading or novel.
An aspect of this piece that I would use in a future project would be comparing and contrasting stories from various mythologies in much the same way as The Girls of Spring.
The Himalayan Elephant
The title of The Himalayan Elephant goes very well with the story line. The plot is actually very simple, but the author is creative in his method of adding length and information through the characters’ discourse. This story is really only about two boys venturing further than they should into the mountains to find an elephant because they have never seen one. Their hike doesn’t last long, and once they see the elephant they had sought, they decide to go home. What makes The Himalayan Elephant interesting is the author’s method of incorporating Hindu tales and mythology through the dialogue between the boys.
The layout of the pages works well, and the author chose appropriate breaks for the chapters. Some of the pictures were a little silly and not completely fitting, but they got the point across and were not too distracting.
Something to take away from this story is the author’s method of keeping the reader intrigued, even though the boys’ big adventure isn’t actually that grand. The reader gets a little taste of some popular tales, making them want to read what the author took inspiration from.
An aspect of this piece that I would use in a future project would be comparing and contrasting stories from various mythologies in much the same way as The Girls of Spring.
The Himalayan Elephant
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| "Elephant" by Alessandro Desantis from Unsplash Photos |
The title of The Himalayan Elephant goes very well with the story line. The plot is actually very simple, but the author is creative in his method of adding length and information through the characters’ discourse. This story is really only about two boys venturing further than they should into the mountains to find an elephant because they have never seen one. Their hike doesn’t last long, and once they see the elephant they had sought, they decide to go home. What makes The Himalayan Elephant interesting is the author’s method of incorporating Hindu tales and mythology through the dialogue between the boys.
The layout of the pages works well, and the author chose appropriate breaks for the chapters. Some of the pictures were a little silly and not completely fitting, but they got the point across and were not too distracting.
Something to take away from this story is the author’s method of keeping the reader intrigued, even though the boys’ big adventure isn’t actually that grand. The reader gets a little taste of some popular tales, making them want to read what the author took inspiration from.
Hello, When am I?
The title of Hello, When am I? went well with the story line. It suggests the theme of time. This was definitely the longest of the three readings for this post, as well as the most intricate and interesting. Some of the mythologies mentioned in this story were also found in the previous two, such as Ramayana, and there were new ones I hadn't heard of. The author created two main characters, Sam and Elliot, who accidentally entered into the world of Draupadi, continuing on into other tales. The two jump into puddles and end up in other worlds based on Hindu mythology. In this case, Draupadi and her husband were from the Wild West, which was an interesting choice.
The set up of this page was the best out of the three. The author left intriguing pauses between chapters and laid out the links to them at the top of the page. The background, font, and pictures all helped to create a dreamy, otherworldly feeling.
There is a lot to take away from Hello, When am I? The writing and page design were by far the best out of these three readings. The author also took a lot of liberty with the tales they used, taking a unique approach to well-known stories. Creating characters capable of jumping in between these mystical worlds and the "real" world helped create a link between different modes of storytelling. The amount of author's notes was also useful for comprehending the context and goal of the piece.
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| Image from Wikipedia |
The title of Hello, When am I? went well with the story line. It suggests the theme of time. This was definitely the longest of the three readings for this post, as well as the most intricate and interesting. Some of the mythologies mentioned in this story were also found in the previous two, such as Ramayana, and there were new ones I hadn't heard of. The author created two main characters, Sam and Elliot, who accidentally entered into the world of Draupadi, continuing on into other tales. The two jump into puddles and end up in other worlds based on Hindu mythology. In this case, Draupadi and her husband were from the Wild West, which was an interesting choice.
The set up of this page was the best out of the three. The author left intriguing pauses between chapters and laid out the links to them at the top of the page. The background, font, and pictures all helped to create a dreamy, otherworldly feeling.
There is a lot to take away from Hello, When am I? The writing and page design were by far the best out of these three readings. The author also took a lot of liberty with the tales they used, taking a unique approach to well-known stories. Creating characters capable of jumping in between these mystical worlds and the "real" world helped create a link between different modes of storytelling. The amount of author's notes was also useful for comprehending the context and goal of the piece.
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I am glad you picked such a wide variety of Storybooks to look at, Bridget! Even when people start off this class not knowing anything about the Indian Epics, all kinds of interesting things happen, including combo projects like that wonderful Persephone-Sita example. People have also done some Cupid-Kamadeva combination projects (Kama is the Indian god of desire, as in Kama Sutra). Anyway, you will see some more examples like that when you browse through the project topic pages in Week 2, and you can decide if that is something you might like to try too.
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