Week 1: Storybook Favorites

1. Everything is Froggy caught my eye with its title. Looking through it, I was pleased with the Storybook's approach to its narration. Bert, a Bullfrog, has traveled all over the world in order to collect fairy tales about frogs, and he thus serves as the Storybook's narrator, giving the audience a clear introduction of the Storybook and supplying information about the stories as one reads them. Bert's clear and charming introduction made it easy to grasp the Storybook's subject matter, and since my experience with frog stories is fairly limited, the subject itself drew me in as well.

2. Tales of an Athlete was a pretty interesting Storybook, in that rather than re-telling certain fairy tales, the author used experiences from her time spent as a volleyball player and related them to certain stories from Aesop's fables. The works in the Storybook are interviews between the author and some of her teammates, and each interview demonstrates a life lesson that she then relates to one of the fables in her Author's Note. I thought that this was very creative, and I liked how the author demonstrated how the works of Aesop's fables teach lessons that are applicable even within the realm of sports. Her introduction was also clear, and her use of pictures excellent.

3. Odysseus Goes Shopping was another one that caught my eye simply with its title. I really liked this Storybook, as its stories of a modern, mundane shopping experience sprinkled with mythological references made for some amusing reading (although I have yet to read through all of the stories). The writing is good and humorous, the author's notes are helpful in clarifying the references she makes in her stories, the pictures she chose are clever, and the addition of recipes at the end of each tale was a nice touch. The site design itself is also simple but pleasant.