please read my storybook favorites :-)

First off, I am a huge fan of myths and stories that revolve around them. I am especially fond of horror stories and mysteries, so I picked some of my favorites from the past storybook projects! I read all the time, so I went through and read a very large portion of the past projects & chose the top three that called out to me the most!


#1 The Tales of Chupacabra and other Peculiar Cryptids

When I first saw this webpage, I got really excited because I thought the author was going to go the scary route with the cryptid stories. However after reading the introduction, I knew that was not the case this time. Even though the stories were not what I originally expected, I loved the way the author infused such a unique personality into each of the cryptids. The introduction sets up the perspective of the stories really effectively and follows through with that in each of the four stories. Overall the website is designed really well. My only very nit picky thing is that I wish the theme of the page was more true to the content. From the dark background to the creepy blood red font, I just get horror story vibes from it. 

The Story of El Chupacabra

#2 The Trickster of OU

My first impression of this storybook was that the link was broken and I had gone to an OU website. I absolutely loved that the author kept the webpage looking similar to an official OU site and carried the topic into the design. Another aspect I appreciated was how the author wove in details that students here on campus would understand and had the trickster play tricks the students would appreciate. I think this website had a really cohesive overall story, which is something I think I would like to do in mine. The author did a really good job of adapting popular tricks played by mythological figures to the OU campus and was extremely creative. I liked how the author explained some of the more stretched connections and gave a message at the end to explain their reasoning and the origin story.

The Trickster of OU

#3 Monsters of the Odyssey

This was one of my favorites overall! The idea of going on a modern cruise and explaining the journey of the Odyssey was really neat. I am a little biased since I have studied Latin and translated many parts of this story. I thought setting up the introduction like an itinerary with links to each of the pages embedded in the text was a really smart and effective way to stick to the theme. The design of the website was the only place I found this storybook falling short. The color scheme and feel of the site just did not seem like it would be a website for a "cruise line." Even if the author would have made the background and accents in blues and yellows instead of oranges and creams, it would have changed how I felt about the overall look.

Odysseus vs. the Cyclops

After reading so many storybooks and picking out my top three, I have noticed some things I want to do in mine. I saw that many had three or four separate short stories that fit an overarching theme, but I want mine to be a continuous story broken into sections like the The Trickster of OU and the Monsters of the Odyssey story. Also, some of the section names were pretty long in the storybooks which makes the navigation tab seem crowded, so I am going to try to keep mine short and sweet. Looking through the past storybooks has really gotten my mind flying all over the place and ready to start planning my own!