Week 2: Storybook Topic Brainstorm
Storybook Topic 1: Fox Stories from Aesop's Fables
As a biologist, I am continually fascinated by animals. I remember reading some of Aesop's Fables for school when I was in elementary and enjoying them. Even though Aesop's Fables anthropomorphizes animals so that they seem more like humans than like animals, in my experience, that made the stories more interesting. One way that I might be able to revamp the folklore to continue to interest a younger audience might be to follow a single character from Aesop's Fable, making each chapter the next moment in that character's life. I remember that one of my favorite characters from the stories when I was younger was the fox, so it might be fun to track the fox through all the lessons he learns, treating him as a single character who is slowly learning from his experiences. Laura's website has a helpful compilation of fox stories from Aesop's Fables when I searched for it. It might be fun to experiment with the flow from story to story, making it seem like a natural day or week for the fox.
Storybook Topic 2: Chilean Folklore/Stories
I thought of Chilean Folklore as a potential topic based on a comment that Laura left me on my "Favorite Place" post, which is a national park in Chile. Because I visited Chile a couple years ago on a backpacking trip, I have a little experience with the environment, and a smaller amount of experience with the country's culture. But because we were outside for the majority of the trip, I didn't get to know the Chilean culture very well, beyond our day in Santiago and conversations with our tour guide in the park. Since that time, though, I have maintained an interest in the country and its people. Learning about Chilean stories might be a good way to continue to dive into the culture. Ideally, I would write about the mythology of the indigenous people of the area, but based on my research, it seems difficult to obtain a copy of the stories. However, it seems like there are two chapters in the book The Mythology of All Races (Vol. 11): Latin-American, by Hartley Burr Alexander that might be useful to me (the chapters on "The Andean South" and "The Pampas to the Land of Fire"), as they cover regions of Chile and the surrounding areas. Perhaps I could retell the stories with more modern language.
Storybook Topic 3: Mythical Creatures + Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
In addition to my interest in real animals, I also love to read about mythical, legendary creatures. It's fun to imagine what it would be like to see one of these imaginary animals if they actually existed, and I've always wondered how the legends started. One time on my parents' farm, my dad spotted a strange, coyote-like creature with a long hairless tail, and he was certain it was a legendary chupacabra! (We don't live in Latin America, so it couldn't have been, but maybe it was very lost!) But that day got me thinking--it was probably moments like that one that first started the legends. For this project idea, I think I could use sources like Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art with Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry by John Vinycomb to explore some of these mythical creatures. I would want to introduce readers to these animals by using J.K. Rowling's magizoologist Newt Scamander from her Harry Potter universe (he's from the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movies). It would be really fun to have Newt giving a tour of his magical suitcase that contains his creatures, identifying the animals one-by-one and telling their stories.
Storybook Topic 4: Sea Monster Myths
As I've mentioned in the previous ideas, I like animals a lot (maybe an understatement). For this final idea, I could narrow-in on a specific category of mythical creatures: sea monsters. I was on swim team in high school, and I continue to swim on my own in college--water has always fascinated me, but I'm more familiar with pools than lakes or the ocean. My experience with these bodies of water has always been to wonder what might be living in the depths, so it sounds interesting to me to explore that fantasy. I think this idea would be similar to my third idea, in that I would reuse a familiar character from a fandom to tell the stories about these creatures. For the sea monster stories, I would want to use Percy Jackson as the narrator, because (1) I love his narration style, (2) as the son of Poseidon, he is probably interested in stories about the sea, and (3) because he is the son of a Greek god, he gets around, so he probably has heard of these legends before. I've been thinking about Percy Jackson a lot lately because my 12-year-old brother just read the series for the first time. :) The Sea Monster page on Wikipedia seems like it will be a good starting place for me to find stories about these creatures.
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