Week 1: Storybook Favorites

Ganesha's Enchanted Journals

In this story, a small shop owner lives the border between the worlds of the living and dead. While his shop seems mostly ordinary, it happens to have special journals. These journals all relay their information back to Ganesha the shopkeeper. This caught me off guard. What an intrusive salesman, charging money for these journals, knowing the privacy they do not actually convey. I wouldn't find these journals useful for customers, and I would probably only give them to people I felt I absolutely needed to keep tabs on. I do; however, see how it could be interesting to have a connected journal of a high school crush.

I felt that the way this story was translated made Ganesha too playful for my liking. I found his playfulness to be somewhat creepy, especially how he baited the reader into continually invading the privacy of the journal owners.

The Ganges River

The topic of this story book was actually a set of three stories told by a frog. The stories were very different in nature, one about a horse thief, the other about the origin of the Ganges, and the last about a trusting king with his queen in peril after childbirth.
I thought the idea of a frog telling the stories to a young boy was interesting. I wish the stories were in a different order, because I found the first story to be the least interesting and hard to follow.
I really liked the way the boy reacted between stories, and how he yearned to get at least one more story told before his mother returned.

In terms of design, I found the font of the page particularly difficult to read.

Tales of Love 

The topic of this story circulates around a few kings and queen, most of them being described as brave, loyal, etc. I found the introduction to be very rough to follow because of how many names you are hit with. There's little difference in some of the kings, as they all sound to be great. I almost think the stories can be presented without the introduction to help make sense.

I did enjoy the format of the endings. It reminded me of the 'choose your ending' Goosebumps books from childhood. I personally chose the story of betrayal because not everyone has to have a happy ending, and I felt the ending fit better because of how everyone seemed too perfect in the introduction.