Hey! This looks ridiculously cute. The coverpage was just perfect, really embodying what I think you’re trying to get across here. The webpage theme conveys an easy-going and fun atmosphere, and the image gets the point across perfectly. In your introduction you come across as personable and easy to talk to, which helps with the overall theme. It starts off a little slow but picks up speed quickly, especially considering we’ve taken drastically different approaches and I wasn’t quite expecting yours. It’s great though. The humor and bits about yourself and your grandmother are wonderful in conveying the spirit of nursery rhymes that it sounds like you love. I can’t wait to see where this goes – looks like it’ll be a great read. A few grammar things I noted (English Major – can’t turn it off so sorry if it’s annoying, I know it annoys me sometimes): The sentence “As children, we have so much wonder and thirst of knowledge for everything around us” was a little odd-sounding, try throwing an ‘a’ in before ‘thirst’ and that should fix it. The sentence “about the stories I have told you about” is redundant and wordy, try ‘about the stories I have described’ – sounds nice and it’ll save you some words in your count. Forgot a quotation mark round Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Hello. First of all, I love the layout of your Storybook. It is very cool and fits the writer theme. This might sound rather weird, but I think one of the coolest aspects of the whole thing is the arrow that points from the link to the page to the page's content. I know, I'm strange. Anyway, great start! I like that it is actually just a writer laying his thoughts out and Jacob seems like a writer to me. I'm excited to read the actual Nursery Rhymes as they are told from his grandmother's oral tradition. Honestly, Jacob sounds like me as I'm writing out my own Storybook or even this very comment.
I am super excited to read the Nursery Rhymes from this angle. I noticed Humpty Dumpty is the first story to get the new treatment, but I haven't read that yet as I wanted to look at each Storybook page one at a time. Of course, that makes it kind of difficult to really construct any thoughts about the Storybook as the Introduction doesn't leave a whole lot of room to comment. I will say again that it was a great start, and I am quite excited to see what you have to offer throughout the rest of the semester. Keep up the great work, and enjoy the rest of this class!
First off, I really like the picture that you have for your cover page. It lets you know what kind of stories and rhymes might be featured in the web site, and the drawings give off a very playful and light tone. Some nursery rhymes get a little dark, but by looking at this, I would guess that you will feature stories that are all very light hearted. Also, the formatting with the torn out notebook pages also suggests youth and fun. I like the white and the light background because it reminds me of a scheme that could actually be in a nursery. I noticed that the font under the picture looks like a typewriter, and I think that is a nice touch.
As for your introduction: Wow, that is actually a really good idea that you have come up with, and I am jealous. The typewriter font definitely fits correctly, and I even the tone of the narrator in the intro still fits with the colors and the picture from the front page. This second picture fits the instagram of a writer perfectly, I am just not sure that writer would be a guy. The set up for the stories worked because I want to read the weird version of the nursery rhymes, and I already want to know more about the narrator's cool grandma. Good job!
I must say that I am beyond impressed with your storybook thus far. The cover page was very cute and fitting to your overall theme. It was nice because it was able to show me what your stories are all going to be about. It also sets the mood to look like these stories will be happy, and not the odd twisted versions that most people like to retell them as. The next thing I really enjoyed was your introduction. I can't tell if you made up your introduction though, or if it is sincere. If this truly is sincere, and you're not just a great writer, than this introduction is the sweetest thing ever. I think it is a great idea that you did your introduction like this because it makes the entire storybook much more personable. It makes me feel as if I am taking a stroll down memory lane with you. Now regarding your first story. I absolutely loved it and thought you did a great job! I didn't see any noticeable grammatical errors, and I thought your introduction for the story itself was great. It tied it back to your storybook introduction, and then was able to introduce the story of Humpty Dumpty. Also, I thought the way you told that story was very creative and interesting! Overall, I think you did an amazing job and I have no doubt in my mind that you will have an amazing storybook when you're all finished!
Kylie! What a great storybook so far! You were my random pick, and I picked you mainly because, one, I love nursery rhyme retells, and two, I'm doing mine on a similar subject and was interested in seeing your spin on the stories! I love the homepage, I like how the characters have the scissors like they're being cut out; I think it makes it look like a foreshadow, like you're going to cut out the characters and make them your own! I also like how the background is the notebook paper, I think that fits in line with the author, you, telling the story in a book. I also like how the font is in typewriter font, since that also fits in well with the background. Overall, I think aesthetically wise, your storybook is Very pleasing. In your introduction, I really enjoyed how you told a little background about yourself, and how you alluded to the current stereotype of the struggling life a writer haha. I also liked how you said you're grandmother inspired the book; I feel like that adds a really great personal touch to the entire purpose of the book, and can make it relatable on a personal level to others who may have had similar experiences with their grandparents. I do think you could have gone a little more into exactly which stories you will be talking about, but overall I think it was so creative and interesting, and I'm sure it will turn out great!
Kylie, I love what you have so far in your storybook. Just from the intro, I can tell that this will be full of plot twists not found in the original nursery rhymes. I also think it is really interesting that you chose to do a frametale setup for your project. I read the Arabian Nights unit, and it was like a fun, complex puzzle to keep track of as I read it. While it can get a bit confusing, I think you are doing a great job framing each new storyteller so far!
In terms of the layout of your website, I was immediately very impressed. It seems as if you have a lot of experience with design, or at least that you have a good eye for color schemes and backgrounds. The notebook paper background and typewriter font set the tone right away, and they fit perfectly the notion of your storybook that this is the work of an avid writer.
Your first retelling of Humpty Dumpty was very well-written and I enjoyed reading about his rambunctiousness. Certainly, the old nursery rhyme never mentioned him being so reckless, and his attitude is definitely a change in pace from what one traditionally thinks of him. I thought you did a great job with the storytelling and making the nursery rhyme your own--it is not easy to take just a few lines of text and embellish to get an entire story!
Your cover page looks great! I like how the images appear as cut outs, such as in a children's story book. I like the simplicity of the page, and the site navigation is clear and easy to manage (to get to the stories).
For your introduction, I like how the picture was the first thing the reader sees. When I finished reading the introduction, and we find out that the narrator is a writer and a coffee lover, your image makes so much more sense. I am excited to see what your Storybook has in store! I like that the stories that you have mentioned are ones that I recognize, and I am excited to see what twist you have on them.
Your interpretation of Humpty Dumpty was amazing! I absolutely love when background information is provided for the character, especially when they are well known such as in this case. I know when I read a story like this, I begin to wonder about little details such as background, why they did what, etc. The fact that you have constructed this story in order to fill in these blanks makes me that much more interested. You did a great job in keeping true to the original, while making it your own as well.
Kylie, I wanted to thank you for your kind words on my storytelling/portfolio post from week five, The Genie's Lament. I'm always glad to get feedback from people letting me know what they thought about my writing--sometimes it's difficult to know if what I intend to say is actually getting across. Thank you for your encouragement with regards to the details and imagery especially; oftentimes I am not sure if it's overkill, haha. Your advice was very useful in helping me decide how to approach storytelling posts in the future!
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for the feedback you gave me on my portfolio about the Aladdin story. It was very encouraging and reaffirmed that I made some great decisions when writing my story. It meant a lot to me that you were so positive and seemed to understand the angle I was trying to take when retelling the story. Thanks again!!
Kylie, Thank you so much for going out of your way to read my weird stories, especially when you do not know what I am even referencing. Someone who cares for their friends that much should be nominated for an award. Like a big one that everyone votes on and that 85,000 people will get to hear all about the nominees and all the cool stuff they have done. Oh wait, you already were nominated for OU HOMECOMING QUEEN! Congratulations on being cool and stuff.
I really enjoyed reading through your storybook project! I like that you took a well-known nursery rhyme and put it in a new perspective. Your author’s note was very interesting…who knew Humpty Dumpty could be connected to so many things?! Even though I have heard the story of Humpty Dumpty countless times, I have obviously never heard Grandma Kay’s background story! I thought it was really cool that you took on the role of someone else to tell the story!
As far as your cover page goes, I really like the clipart of the nursery rhyme characters that you provided. They are so adorable! Even though it is a solid beige color, I also really like the background color you have chosen for your storybook; it complements the theme very nicely.
Also, I really liked your introduction. I thought it was very interesting and it got my attention right away. I like that you are posing as a typical writer who drinks too much coffee; it makes things more interesting when we can pretend to be someone else, even for just a little while! Additionally, I thought you did a great job of setting the stage for your stories, and I am looking forward to reading more!
Hello Kylie, First off I love the cover photo and the photo used in the Introduction. I really enjoy how you designed your website. Everything has such a clean and comfortable feeling to it. The concept is such a unique one. Nursery rhymes are always fun to write about. Everyone knows the general background on classic nursery rhymes. So I’m very excited your take on them and how Grandma Kay describes them. After reading Humpty Dumpty I was left very pleased. I love your take on the background of the story we all know. We all knew that he was an egg who fell and cracked himself. But we didn’t know him beyond that. I think you wrote this very simple but also very easy to understand. Adding dialog to the characters also helped us gauge their personalities. Creating Eggville and having residents there that are eggs as well is such a great idea! Knowing that Humpty was a daredevil added an extra oomph to this classic tale and made it better. It’s not a happy ending but I think it ties in the story very well. Good job on everything so far! I look forward to reading your story more.
I love how you decided to approach the nursery rhymes! Your creativity is amazing. I liked your introduction where you have Jacob explaining the back story of his grandmother Kay and how these nursery rhymes were her creation. It was a great way to introduce the stories and I think we can all agree that a grandma and nursery rhymes just seem to go together. It flows seamlessly into your story for Jack be Nimble. I loved your inclusion of the hot chocolate by the fire to really set the scene for the telling of a nursery rhyme. It was great you did some research into the back story of why the jumping over a candlestick was good luck and incorporated it into your story. You present a great message that most often we create our own circumstances. Luck did not get Jack to move onto the next grade; his hard work in studying for the test did. Great job in developing a whole story from one small nursery rhyme and the idea of jumping over a candle stick being good luck. You expanded upon it beautifully!
The concept of a writer trying to share the stories he loved as boy is a really neat way to frame your story. I like how you begin each story with the writer narrator explaining what the following story means to him personally. Not only is he serving as a guide to take readers through the stories, but he’s also conveying why is it that each story he tells is so rich to him. These commentaries set up the stories wonderfully. The site looks great as well, and the pictures well-chosen.
Both stories are told in a really fun way, with a good amount of details included to make the narrative engaging. You’ve given the characters in the story clear and relatable personalities and personal conflicts to make the narratives really easy to invest in. You’ve also done a great job giving each story a central moral that is conveyed through the successes or failures of the protagonist. It’s particularly impressive how you were able to spin such a great yarn from so simple a poem as “Jack Be Nimble.” It’s awesome how you were able to combine your research on what it meant to jump over a candlestick into your story in such a smooth way.
Hi Kylie! I thought your cover page was perfect for this storybook theme, and I also really like your format for the storybook. I think that your theme is so creative. A book of nursery rhymes retold by a man who was rewriting them as his grandmother had told them to him. And I love that she made changes and added characters because that is what is going to keep the reader interested. I think the pictures in your storybook are great because they are so classic and exactly what I imagine when I think of these stories. I really liked Humpty Dumpty because I felt like it explained so much about the story that you do not get just from the little nursery rhyme that most people hear as a child. I thought the second story was really good because it had kind of a moral to it. If you study, you will do well in school. I really liked that there was a lot behind the story of Jack be Nimble. You did a really good job and I cannot wait to keep reading as you add more stories! Great job and good luck with the rest :)
Hi Kylie! I really enjoyed reading your storybook this week - the idea was so creative! I thought it was great that you used the two characters, Jacob and Kay, to give a little bit of rhyme and reason to these strange nursery rhymes with which we are all so familiar. It's funny how as I was reading through your stories, I realized that I recognized all of the words, but had never really given much thought to the meaning behind any of them. So I love how you thought of a reason for Humpty Dumpty to be sitting on the wall as well as the more modern, realistic direction you went with Hey, Diddle Diddle. I thought it was fascinating what you found out about the Jack Be Nimble game being related to luck and it was so cool how you tied that into your story. Overall, I really enjoyed the layout of your storybook as well. It was really cute how, since it is from the perspective of a writer, you used notebook pages to write the stories on. I also really like the images you used to illustrate the different nursery rhymes. I'm a huge visual person so I like seeing familiar stories represented in different ways. It was a pleasure to read your storybook this week and I can't wait to see your last story!
Kylie, I love the pictures you chose for your coverpage, oh my gosh! They are absolutely adorable and that really brings the nursery rhyme topic together for your entire storybook. I like the simplistic choice you used for the layout. I like that your introduction brings us into a book itself and I feel like I can really relate to Jacob as a writer and fellow coffee-drinker. You construct your sentences so very good that I bet you are a writer yourself. The photo ties it all together as well.
Humpty Dumpty is a classic story. There are a lot of versions indeed but we all know the rhyme! I can only imagine him as a daredevil for sure like you portrayed him. He seems very full of himself and of course being so arrogant leads to bad consequences! That’s a good moral to teach from this story. I am surprised you through us for a loop and explained that he died from the fall. It definitely should serve as a warning to everyone else, don’t be so reckless! On the other hand, it would’ve been kind of neat if he had managed it. Good job making the backstory your own!
I love your Storybook! I only read the Introduction and Humpty Dumpty today, but I'll be back later for more :) I really love how you created an inception story: nursery rhymes and Jacob and Grandma Kay. I don't know what it is but older people tend to have better imaginations than kids these days so the way you had Grandma Kay convey this nursery rhyme was awesome! Before this class, I'd only ever heard the rhyme itself, no story behind Humpty or why he was on the wall. Your story with a daredevil egg living in an egg city was brilliant! Another person in our class did Humpty Dumpty too for their Storybook and they made him an old man egg that watched everyone walk past like the wall was his front porch rocking chair! You did an answer job developing your storytelling Grandma and Jacob and gave great personality to HUmpty Dumpty! Keep up the great work and I'll be back for the rest!!
Hello Kylie! I cannot believe we are this far into the semester and I have not even seen your storybook! That means I get to comment on a lot of your storybook. I would like to start with your cover page. Your cover page looks great! I think the picture is perfect and the theme you chose is great. I think you did a good job with your introduction. Your introduction leads to your stories smoothly and the background information to why you are writing the stories adds a lot to your storybook. I think the font you used is great as well. The storybook all feels like a writer at a type writer. Your first story was great. I think adding the back story to Humpty Dumpty was a great idea. Thinking of Humpty as a daredevil was a great touch and so was Eggville. He was on the wall which was a pretty crazy thing for an egg to do. I like that you had all the people gather around and even the Eggville Chronicle. That one gave me a laugh. Your storybook is great! I like the creativity you have with this storybook and all the different ways you can go with it.
First off I wanted to say that I really liked the way that your storybook was formatted and styled. It makes me think of a news reporter or author who spends their entire day writing in a coffee shop. Very cute. I loved your introduction. I thought you introduced a guy telling nursery rhymes in a very clever way. It was really cute that it was for his grandmother, in her memory perhaps. Over all, it was an excellent way to lead into your stories. I absolutely loved you Humpty Dumpty story. It was so funny and clever, and definitely from a perspective I had never heard before! I definitely love how Humpty is a daredevil of sorts. It definitely explains why he broke. In Jack Be Nibble I loved how you could see a change in Jack from the first time he walked into the classroom to the second time! Great job with that, it really helps the reader understand how Jack is really feeling. I especially like how the whole thing was a little bit of a trick on his dad’s part to get him to study harder, and that Jack did well on the test in the end. Great job on all your stories! This was definitely one of my absolute favorite storybooks yet!
Hello again! It's honestly been quite some time since I read your Storybook. I regret that I let time slip away, but I'm back with a vengeance, and there were three stories awaiting me upon my return, so that was pretty exciting. Getting down to brass tacks, these stories are great. You've taken a small little rhyme and made a huge story out of it. I think that takes a lot of talent and skill to expand such little material like that, so major kudos there. Plus, the stories are actually entertaining now with characters that I enjoy reading about, especially Humpty Dumpty. I think that one was my favorite.
Keep up the great work, and I am looking forward to reading the last story. I have no guess as to which nursery rhyme to expect and I think that is half the fun. The ones that have been chosen so far feel rather random to me, but I guess that can be said about any collection of nursery rhymes, since they're all so different. Anyway, again, I'm excited for the last one and I can't wait to see what grandma has drummed up over a small nursery rhyme for the grand finale!
Kylie - wow, the theme and look of your storybook is SO good! I love the notebook-y look in the background and how you completed the theme with the typewriter style font. Also, the little illustrations of nursery rhyme characters on the main page was a perfect touch! I really liked the nursery rhyme reading unit so I was really interested and excited to read your intro and story.
I feel like there is a million ways you could have gone for your introduction into this nursery rhyme storybook. Honestly, if it was me, I probably would have taken the perspective of one of the nursery rhyme characters like Humpty Dumpty or something to introduce the book and what it entailed, much like most students did. But I like that you took a different approach and made the intro about a struggling writer who writes nursery rhymes, and also added a really personal touch about his grandmother and their significance to her.
I ended up reading your most recent story "Hey Diddle Diddle," and I loved it! With short, 'nonsense-y' nursery rhymes, you kind of have the freedom to interpret, expand on or retell the story in any way you want. I like how you kept original idea of the rhyme about the cat and the fiddle, etc. as a small part of bigger story instead of trying to tell a story about the elements in the rhyme - that would be pretty hard! I also like that you start with the narrator's perspective and the original rhyme and then lead into his grandmother's version. That's a really unique way to do it!
Overall, I think you have done a great job on this storybook and have a really great idea and concept going! Good job, Kylie!!!
I have not visited your storybook project since you put up your first story. So it was definitely nice to come back to it and read another reimagined nursery rhyme! I just read your story over the Jack Be Nimble nursery rhyme and I loved it!
Like you mentioned in your author’s note, you have so much room to work with in the transformation of a short nursery rhyme to an actual story! I have to say, you have done a wonderful job of doing that! I admire the massive amount of creativity you have, as well as your endless imagination. You also mentioned that you wanted to use a lot of imagery in your retelling, and I personally think you did a great job! I felt like I was one of Jack’s classmates when he was in the classroom, and I felt like I was Jack himself when he was cramming for his vocabulary test!
Also, I thought it was very interesting that you incorporated the background information about jumping over a candlestick for good luck into your story. I had never heard that before, so that was a nice little tidbit of information!
It was nice to come back to your storybook, great job!!
Hi Kylie, I chose to revisit your storybook because I really enjoyed it the first time around! I think that it is coming along great. I was interested to read "Hey. Diddle Diddle" because that was a rhyme that never made sense to me. For this reason, it was really nice to see your version of a back story on the rhyme. The only thing I am disappointed about was that "Three Blind Mice" was not finished! I will have to come back and read that one when it is finished because I look forward to how you will change that story up since I feel like there are a lot of ways you could go with it. Overall, I really like how your storybook looks. I like how the pictures really look like they are out of a nursery rhyme. The background you used is also really great because it really reminds me that the narrator is a professional writer. I like to read the storybooks that include stories that I am familiar with so that is another reason I chose to read your storybook. It makes things so exciting, especially since you change it up a lot. Great job!
Hey Kylie, As usual, the rest of your stories were pretty awesome. I really do like your theme, and I am a little jealous of what you came up with because it seems like it was so easy for you to write your stories. You were very creative with the amount of detail that you added to these stories. I particularly like your Ocean's Eleven version of the Three Blind Mice. Their meticulous planning to get the the farmer's wife's pie and the code names and everything were hilarious. I am glad that the wife ended up just letting them eat some of the pie because she felt bad for them. I also appreciate their old person, English names. You have continued to do well in everything that I have read in this class. Your writings are all creative yet still have great structure and style. I am not sure how this would really translate into you working for AGD nationals, but maybe you will be able to put these awesome story telling skills to work for an ad agency one day. I really hope that you have had fun in this class because I have enjoyed having a friend whose stuff I can read and endure these assignments with.
Hey!
ReplyDeleteThis looks ridiculously cute. The coverpage was just perfect, really embodying what I think you’re trying to get across here. The webpage theme conveys an easy-going and fun atmosphere, and the image gets the point across perfectly. In your introduction you come across as personable and easy to talk to, which helps with the overall theme. It starts off a little slow but picks up speed quickly, especially considering we’ve taken drastically different approaches and I wasn’t quite expecting yours. It’s great though. The humor and bits about yourself and your grandmother are wonderful in conveying the spirit of nursery rhymes that it sounds like you love. I can’t wait to see where this goes – looks like it’ll be a great read.
A few grammar things I noted (English Major – can’t turn it off so sorry if it’s annoying, I know it annoys me sometimes):
The sentence “As children, we have so much wonder and thirst of knowledge for everything around us” was a little odd-sounding, try throwing an ‘a’ in before ‘thirst’ and that should fix it.
The sentence “about the stories I have told you about” is redundant and wordy, try ‘about the stories I have described’ – sounds nice and it’ll save you some words in your count.
Forgot a quotation mark round Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Hello. First of all, I love the layout of your Storybook. It is very cool and fits the writer theme. This might sound rather weird, but I think one of the coolest aspects of the whole thing is the arrow that points from the link to the page to the page's content. I know, I'm strange. Anyway, great start! I like that it is actually just a writer laying his thoughts out and Jacob seems like a writer to me. I'm excited to read the actual Nursery Rhymes as they are told from his grandmother's oral tradition. Honestly, Jacob sounds like me as I'm writing out my own Storybook or even this very comment.
ReplyDeleteI am super excited to read the Nursery Rhymes from this angle. I noticed Humpty Dumpty is the first story to get the new treatment, but I haven't read that yet as I wanted to look at each Storybook page one at a time. Of course, that makes it kind of difficult to really construct any thoughts about the Storybook as the Introduction doesn't leave a whole lot of room to comment. I will say again that it was a great start, and I am quite excited to see what you have to offer throughout the rest of the semester. Keep up the great work, and enjoy the rest of this class!
First off, I really like the picture that you have for your cover page. It lets you know what kind of stories and rhymes might be featured in the web site, and the drawings give off a very playful and light tone. Some nursery rhymes get a little dark, but by looking at this, I would guess that you will feature stories that are all very light hearted. Also, the formatting with the torn out notebook pages also suggests youth and fun. I like the white and the light background because it reminds me of a scheme that could actually be in a nursery. I noticed that the font under the picture looks like a typewriter, and I think that is a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteAs for your introduction:
Wow, that is actually a really good idea that you have come up with, and I am jealous. The typewriter font definitely fits correctly, and I even the tone of the narrator in the intro still fits with the colors and the picture from the front page. This second picture fits the instagram of a writer perfectly, I am just not sure that writer would be a guy. The set up for the stories worked because I want to read the weird version of the nursery rhymes, and I already want to know more about the narrator's cool grandma. Good job!
I must say that I am beyond impressed with your storybook thus far. The cover page was very cute and fitting to your overall theme. It was nice because it was able to show me what your stories are all going to be about. It also sets the mood to look like these stories will be happy, and not the odd twisted versions that most people like to retell them as. The next thing I really enjoyed was your introduction. I can't tell if you made up your introduction though, or if it is sincere. If this truly is sincere, and you're not just a great writer, than this introduction is the sweetest thing ever. I think it is a great idea that you did your introduction like this because it makes the entire storybook much more personable. It makes me feel as if I am taking a stroll down memory lane with you.
ReplyDeleteNow regarding your first story. I absolutely loved it and thought you did a great job! I didn't see any noticeable grammatical errors, and I thought your introduction for the story itself was great. It tied it back to your storybook introduction, and then was able to introduce the story of Humpty Dumpty. Also, I thought the way you told that story was very creative and interesting! Overall, I think you did an amazing job and I have no doubt in my mind that you will have an amazing storybook when you're all finished!
Kylie! What a great storybook so far! You were my random pick, and I picked you mainly because, one, I love nursery rhyme retells, and two, I'm doing mine on a similar subject and was interested in seeing your spin on the stories! I love the homepage, I like how the characters have the scissors like they're being cut out; I think it makes it look like a foreshadow, like you're going to cut out the characters and make them your own! I also like how the background is the notebook paper, I think that fits in line with the author, you, telling the story in a book. I also like how the font is in typewriter font, since that also fits in well with the background. Overall, I think aesthetically wise, your storybook is Very pleasing. In your introduction, I really enjoyed how you told a little background about yourself, and how you alluded to the current stereotype of the struggling life a writer haha. I also liked how you said you're grandmother inspired the book; I feel like that adds a really great personal touch to the entire purpose of the book, and can make it relatable on a personal level to others who may have had similar experiences with their grandparents. I do think you could have gone a little more into exactly which stories you will be talking about, but overall I think it was so creative and interesting, and I'm sure it will turn out great!
ReplyDeleteKylie, I love what you have so far in your storybook. Just from the intro, I can tell that this will be full of plot twists not found in the original nursery rhymes. I also think it is really interesting that you chose to do a frametale setup for your project. I read the Arabian Nights unit, and it was like a fun, complex puzzle to keep track of as I read it. While it can get a bit confusing, I think you are doing a great job framing each new storyteller so far!
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the layout of your website, I was immediately very impressed. It seems as if you have a lot of experience with design, or at least that you have a good eye for color schemes and backgrounds. The notebook paper background and typewriter font set the tone right away, and they fit perfectly the notion of your storybook that this is the work of an avid writer.
Your first retelling of Humpty Dumpty was very well-written and I enjoyed reading about his rambunctiousness. Certainly, the old nursery rhyme never mentioned him being so reckless, and his attitude is definitely a change in pace from what one traditionally thinks of him. I thought you did a great job with the storytelling and making the nursery rhyme your own--it is not easy to take just a few lines of text and embellish to get an entire story!
Kylie,
ReplyDeleteYour cover page looks great! I like how the images appear as cut outs, such as in a children's story book. I like the simplicity of the page, and the site navigation is clear and easy to manage (to get to the stories).
For your introduction, I like how the picture was the first thing the reader sees. When I finished reading the introduction, and we find out that the narrator is a writer and a coffee lover, your image makes so much more sense. I am excited to see what your Storybook has in store! I like that the stories that you have mentioned are ones that I recognize, and I am excited to see what twist you have on them.
Your interpretation of Humpty Dumpty was amazing! I absolutely love when background information is provided for the character, especially when they are well known such as in this case. I know when I read a story like this, I begin to wonder about little details such as background, why they did what, etc. The fact that you have constructed this story in order to fill in these blanks makes me that much more interested. You did a great job in keeping true to the original, while making it your own as well.
Great job!
Kylie, I wanted to thank you for your kind words on my storytelling/portfolio post from week five, The Genie's Lament. I'm always glad to get feedback from people letting me know what they thought about my writing--sometimes it's difficult to know if what I intend to say is actually getting across. Thank you for your encouragement with regards to the details and imagery especially; oftentimes I am not sure if it's overkill, haha. Your advice was very useful in helping me decide how to approach storytelling posts in the future!
ReplyDeleteHey Kylie,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to take a moment to thank you for the feedback you gave me on my portfolio about the Aladdin story. It was very encouraging and reaffirmed that I made some great decisions when writing my story. It meant a lot to me that you were so positive and seemed to understand the angle I was trying to take when retelling the story. Thanks again!!
Kylie,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for going out of your way to read my weird stories, especially when you do not know what I am even referencing. Someone who cares for their friends that much should be nominated for an award. Like a big one that everyone votes on and that 85,000 people will get to hear all about the nominees and all the cool stuff they have done. Oh wait, you already were nominated for OU HOMECOMING QUEEN! Congratulations on being cool and stuff.
Hi Kylie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading through your storybook project! I like that you took a well-known nursery rhyme and put it in a new perspective. Your author’s note was very interesting…who knew Humpty Dumpty could be connected to so many things?! Even though I have heard the story of Humpty Dumpty countless times, I have obviously never heard Grandma Kay’s background story! I thought it was really cool that you took on the role of someone else to tell the story!
As far as your cover page goes, I really like the clipart of the nursery rhyme characters that you provided. They are so adorable! Even though it is a solid beige color, I also really like the background color you have chosen for your storybook; it complements the theme very nicely.
Also, I really liked your introduction. I thought it was very interesting and it got my attention right away. I like that you are posing as a typical writer who drinks too much coffee; it makes things more interesting when we can pretend to be someone else, even for just a little while! Additionally, I thought you did a great job of setting the stage for your stories, and I am looking forward to reading more!
Hello Kylie,
ReplyDeleteFirst off I love the cover photo and the photo used in the Introduction. I really enjoy how you designed your website. Everything has such a clean and comfortable feeling to it. The concept is such a unique one. Nursery rhymes are always fun to write about. Everyone knows the general background on classic nursery rhymes. So I’m very excited your take on them and how Grandma Kay describes them.
After reading Humpty Dumpty I was left very pleased. I love your take on the background of the story we all know. We all knew that he was an egg who fell and cracked himself. But we didn’t know him beyond that. I think you wrote this very simple but also very easy to understand. Adding dialog to the characters also helped us gauge their personalities. Creating Eggville and having residents there that are eggs as well is such a great idea! Knowing that Humpty was a daredevil added an extra oomph to this classic tale and made it better. It’s not a happy ending but I think it ties in the story very well. Good job on everything so far! I look forward to reading your story more.
I love how you decided to approach the nursery rhymes! Your creativity is amazing. I liked your introduction where you have Jacob explaining the back story of his grandmother Kay and how these nursery rhymes were her creation. It was a great way to introduce the stories and I think we can all agree that a grandma and nursery rhymes just seem to go together. It flows seamlessly into your story for Jack be Nimble. I loved your inclusion of the hot chocolate by the fire to really set the scene for the telling of a nursery rhyme. It was great you did some research into the back story of why the jumping over a candlestick was good luck and incorporated it into your story. You present a great message that most often we create our own circumstances. Luck did not get Jack to move onto the next grade; his hard work in studying for the test did. Great job in developing a whole story from one small nursery rhyme and the idea of jumping over a candle stick being good luck. You expanded upon it beautifully!
ReplyDeleteThe concept of a writer trying to share the stories he loved as boy is a really neat way to frame your story. I like how you begin each story with the writer narrator explaining what the following story means to him personally. Not only is he serving as a guide to take readers through the stories, but he’s also conveying why is it that each story he tells is so rich to him. These commentaries set up the stories wonderfully. The site looks great as well, and the pictures well-chosen.
ReplyDeleteBoth stories are told in a really fun way, with a good amount of details included to make the narrative engaging. You’ve given the characters in the story clear and relatable personalities and personal conflicts to make the narratives really easy to invest in. You’ve also done a great job giving each story a central moral that is conveyed through the successes or failures of the protagonist. It’s particularly impressive how you were able to spin such a great yarn from so simple a poem as “Jack Be Nimble.” It’s awesome how you were able to combine your research on what it meant to jump over a candlestick into your story in such a smooth way.
Hi Kylie!
ReplyDeleteI thought your cover page was perfect for this storybook theme, and I also really like your format for the storybook. I think that your theme is so creative. A book of nursery rhymes retold by a man who was rewriting them as his grandmother had told them to him. And I love that she made changes and added characters because that is what is going to keep the reader interested. I think the pictures in your storybook are great because they are so classic and exactly what I imagine when I think of these stories. I really liked Humpty Dumpty because I felt like it explained so much about the story that you do not get just from the little nursery rhyme that most people hear as a child. I thought the second story was really good because it had kind of a moral to it. If you study, you will do well in school. I really liked that there was a lot behind the story of Jack be Nimble. You did a really good job and I cannot wait to keep reading as you add more stories! Great job and good luck with the rest :)
Hi Kylie! I really enjoyed reading your storybook this week - the idea was so creative! I thought it was great that you used the two characters, Jacob and Kay, to give a little bit of rhyme and reason to these strange nursery rhymes with which we are all so familiar. It's funny how as I was reading through your stories, I realized that I recognized all of the words, but had never really given much thought to the meaning behind any of them. So I love how you thought of a reason for Humpty Dumpty to be sitting on the wall as well as the more modern, realistic direction you went with Hey, Diddle Diddle. I thought it was fascinating what you found out about the Jack Be Nimble game being related to luck and it was so cool how you tied that into your story. Overall, I really enjoyed the layout of your storybook as well. It was really cute how, since it is from the perspective of a writer, you used notebook pages to write the stories on. I also really like the images you used to illustrate the different nursery rhymes. I'm a huge visual person so I like seeing familiar stories represented in different ways. It was a pleasure to read your storybook this week and I can't wait to see your last story!
ReplyDeleteKylie, I love the pictures you chose for your coverpage, oh my gosh! They are absolutely adorable and that really brings the nursery rhyme topic together for your entire storybook. I like the simplistic choice you used for the layout. I like that your introduction brings us into a book itself and I feel like I can really relate to Jacob as a writer and fellow coffee-drinker. You construct your sentences so very good that I bet you are a writer yourself. The photo ties it all together as well.
ReplyDeleteHumpty Dumpty is a classic story. There are a lot of versions indeed but we all know the rhyme! I can only imagine him as a daredevil for sure like you portrayed him. He seems very full of himself and of course being so arrogant leads to bad consequences! That’s a good moral to teach from this story. I am surprised you through us for a loop and explained that he died from the fall. It definitely should serve as a warning to everyone else, don’t be so reckless! On the other hand, it would’ve been kind of neat if he had managed it. Good job making the backstory your own!
Hi Kylie!
ReplyDeleteI love your Storybook! I only read the Introduction and Humpty Dumpty today, but I'll be back later for more :) I really love how you created an inception story: nursery rhymes and Jacob and Grandma Kay. I don't know what it is but older people tend to have better imaginations than kids these days so the way you had Grandma Kay convey this nursery rhyme was awesome! Before this class, I'd only ever heard the rhyme itself, no story behind Humpty or why he was on the wall. Your story with a daredevil egg living in an egg city was brilliant! Another person in our class did Humpty Dumpty too for their Storybook and they made him an old man egg that watched everyone walk past like the wall was his front porch rocking chair! You did an answer job developing your storytelling Grandma and Jacob and gave great personality to HUmpty Dumpty! Keep up the great work and I'll be back for the rest!!
Hello Kylie! I cannot believe we are this far into the semester and I have not even seen your storybook! That means I get to comment on a lot of your storybook. I would like to start with your cover page. Your cover page looks great! I think the picture is perfect and the theme you chose is great. I think you did a good job with your introduction. Your introduction leads to your stories smoothly and the background information to why you are writing the stories adds a lot to your storybook. I think the font you used is great as well. The storybook all feels like a writer at a type writer. Your first story was great. I think adding the back story to Humpty Dumpty was a great idea. Thinking of Humpty as a daredevil was a great touch and so was Eggville. He was on the wall which was a pretty crazy thing for an egg to do. I like that you had all the people gather around and even the Eggville Chronicle. That one gave me a laugh. Your storybook is great! I like the creativity you have with this storybook and all the different ways you can go with it.
ReplyDeleteHey Kylie!
ReplyDeleteFirst off I wanted to say that I really liked the way that your storybook was formatted and styled. It makes me think of a news reporter or author who spends their entire day writing in a coffee shop. Very cute. I loved your introduction. I thought you introduced a guy telling nursery rhymes in a very clever way. It was really cute that it was for his grandmother, in her memory perhaps. Over all, it was an excellent way to lead into your stories. I absolutely loved you Humpty Dumpty story. It was so funny and clever, and definitely from a perspective I had never heard before! I definitely love how Humpty is a daredevil of sorts. It definitely explains why he broke. In Jack Be Nibble I loved how you could see a change in Jack from the first time he walked into the classroom to the second time! Great job with that, it really helps the reader understand how Jack is really feeling. I especially like how the whole thing was a little bit of a trick on his dad’s part to get him to study harder, and that Jack did well on the test in the end. Great job on all your stories! This was definitely one of my absolute favorite storybooks yet!
Hello again! It's honestly been quite some time since I read your Storybook. I regret that I let time slip away, but I'm back with a vengeance, and there were three stories awaiting me upon my return, so that was pretty exciting. Getting down to brass tacks, these stories are great. You've taken a small little rhyme and made a huge story out of it. I think that takes a lot of talent and skill to expand such little material like that, so major kudos there. Plus, the stories are actually entertaining now with characters that I enjoy reading about, especially Humpty Dumpty. I think that one was my favorite.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work, and I am looking forward to reading the last story. I have no guess as to which nursery rhyme to expect and I think that is half the fun. The ones that have been chosen so far feel rather random to me, but I guess that can be said about any collection of nursery rhymes, since they're all so different. Anyway, again, I'm excited for the last one and I can't wait to see what grandma has drummed up over a small nursery rhyme for the grand finale!
Kylie - wow, the theme and look of your storybook is SO good! I love the notebook-y look in the background and how you completed the theme with the typewriter style font. Also, the little illustrations of nursery rhyme characters on the main page was a perfect touch! I really liked the nursery rhyme reading unit so I was really interested and excited to read your intro and story.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there is a million ways you could have gone for your introduction into this nursery rhyme storybook. Honestly, if it was me, I probably would have taken the perspective of one of the nursery rhyme characters like Humpty Dumpty or something to introduce the book and what it entailed, much like most students did. But I like that you took a different approach and made the intro about a struggling writer who writes nursery rhymes, and also added a really personal touch about his grandmother and their significance to her.
I ended up reading your most recent story "Hey Diddle Diddle," and I loved it! With short, 'nonsense-y' nursery rhymes, you kind of have the freedom to interpret, expand on or retell the story in any way you want. I like how you kept original idea of the rhyme about the cat and the fiddle, etc. as a small part of bigger story instead of trying to tell a story about the elements in the rhyme - that would be pretty hard! I also like that you start with the narrator's perspective and the original rhyme and then lead into his grandmother's version. That's a really unique way to do it!
Overall, I think you have done a great job on this storybook and have a really great idea and concept going! Good job, Kylie!!!
Hi, Kylie.
ReplyDeleteI have not visited your storybook project since you put up your first story. So it was definitely nice to come back to it and read another reimagined nursery rhyme! I just read your story over the Jack Be Nimble nursery rhyme and I loved it!
Like you mentioned in your author’s note, you have so much room to work with in the transformation of a short nursery rhyme to an actual story! I have to say, you have done a wonderful job of doing that! I admire the massive amount of creativity you have, as well as your endless imagination. You also mentioned that you wanted to use a lot of imagery in your retelling, and I personally think you did a great job! I felt like I was one of Jack’s classmates when he was in the classroom, and I felt like I was Jack himself when he was cramming for his vocabulary test!
Also, I thought it was very interesting that you incorporated the background information about jumping over a candlestick for good luck into your story. I had never heard that before, so that was a nice little tidbit of information!
It was nice to come back to your storybook, great job!!
Hi Kylie,
ReplyDeleteI chose to revisit your storybook because I really enjoyed it the first time around! I think that it is coming along great. I was interested to read "Hey. Diddle Diddle" because that was a rhyme that never made sense to me. For this reason, it was really nice to see your version of a back story on the rhyme. The only thing I am disappointed about was that "Three Blind Mice" was not finished! I will have to come back and read that one when it is finished because I look forward to how you will change that story up since I feel like there are a lot of ways you could go with it. Overall, I really like how your storybook looks. I like how the pictures really look like they are out of a nursery rhyme. The background you used is also really great because it really reminds me that the narrator is a professional writer. I like to read the storybooks that include stories that I am familiar with so that is another reason I chose to read your storybook. It makes things so exciting, especially since you change it up a lot. Great job!
Hey Kylie,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, the rest of your stories were pretty awesome. I really do like your theme, and I am a little jealous of what you came up with because it seems like it was so easy for you to write your stories. You were very creative with the amount of detail that you added to these stories.
I particularly like your Ocean's Eleven version of the Three Blind Mice. Their meticulous planning to get the the farmer's wife's pie and the code names and everything were hilarious. I am glad that the wife ended up just letting them eat some of the pie because she felt bad for them. I also appreciate their old person, English names.
You have continued to do well in everything that I have read in this class. Your writings are all creative yet still have great structure and style. I am not sure how this would really translate into you working for AGD nationals, but maybe you will be able to put these awesome story telling skills to work for an ad agency one day. I really hope that you have had fun in this class because I have enjoyed having a friend whose stuff I can read and endure these assignments with.
Hi Kylie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment on my storytelling post!