Assignment Seven - 01

Design a Children Storybook - Phase One
What? Design a storybook for children age 6-9.
Partner: Shu Hui

Research/Brainstorm
We start off by researching existing children storybooks to know what is expected of us. We realised that most of the books:
- uses animal characters
- have a morale behind the story
- have a happy ending of rewarding the good and punishing the bad
- have fairly large colored illustrations

With these aims in mind, we brainstormed several simple stories revolving around a day with Bear (our main character) and his friends.

Drafts of Characters

Different Versions of Bear

We experiment with different looks for Bear. The looks of the other characters will be based on the structure of Bear. Eventually, we chose the round plush look (right) as we think it'll appeal to children the most.

Story
During tutorial, the story we presented was as follows:
"Bear goes on a walk and meet three of his friends, Bunny, Bee and Owl. He asks them to play with him respectively but is rejected with excuses such as being too busy. Dejected, he sits by the lake till evening. When he heads home, he sees his friends outside his house with surprise party - it's Bear's birthday! Thus, his friends actually were too busy preparing for the event to play with Bear."
Critique: The previous events (getting rejected) does not really tie with the surprise party.

While refining our story, we also tried to include a morale this time and came up with:
"Bear goes on a walk and meet three of his friends, Bunny, Bee and Mother Hen. Bunny is working in his carrot field, Bee is stuck in a spider web and Mother Hen has lost her chick. Bear offers to help them and in return he was rewarded with a carrot, pot of honey and pair of eggs. On his way home, he decides to use his gifts to create a delicious cake. He invites his friends over and they share the cake happily."

Here, it reflects the friendship among Bear and his friends more. It shows working together makes things easier and that good turns are rewarded. The events are better linked as well. We've also named the characters so the children can better identify with them.

With the story finalized, we began planning and sketching the illustrations. The skeleton of our story will be 14 pages as follows:
1) Bobby Bear goes on a walk
2) Bobby Bear meets Hoppy Bunny
3) Bobby Bear helps Hoppy Bunny (work in carrot field)
4) Bobby Bear receives reward (carrot) and bids goodbye
5) Bobby Bear meets Bizzy Bee (trapped in spider web)
6) Bobby Bear helps Bizzy Bee (use stick to untangle)
7) Bobby Bear receives reward (honey pot) and bids goodbye
8) Bobby Bear meets Mother Hen
9) Bobby Bear helps Mother Hen (find Little Chick)
10) Bobby Bear receives reward (eggs) and bids goodbye
11) Bobby Bear walks home (has an idea)
12) Bobby Bear in kitchen, baking
13) Bobby Bear looks at cake and thinks of his friends
14) Bobby Bear eats the cake happily with his friends