Storybook Favorites!

As a disclaimer, I do not have any prior knowledge of Indian epics, but I was drawn to these three storybooks and enjoyed each of their stories.

“Supernatural Counseling” is about a marriage counseling between Rama and Sita, conducted by Carol from a third-person perspective. I do believe that this storybook did a great job in revealing background information so that any reader could comprehend easily. I was personally drawn to the title because I am an aspiring counselor, and I was curious about the plot line of this story. The introduction is well written and effectively laid out the conflict at hand. I like how the author modernized characters and stories while still maintaining their core values. Overall, the design of the storybook is decent, but may be up for some improvements. I like the layout of the pages, and the images chosen corresponded well with each section. The background and font style, in my opinion, may need to change to be more appealing and correlate with the storybook.

“Ravana’s Diary: For My Twenty EyesOnly!” is a first-person perspective story where each section is an entry in Ravana’s Diary throughout his life; however, the introduction was in the first-person perspective of Mandodari, Ravana’s wife. I was drawn to the title initially because of the subtitle “For My Twenty Eyes Only!” seemed absurd, and therefore, had a great reading potential.  The introduction was well written and consisted of background information as to why there is a diary and an overview of the whole story from Ravana’s point of view. I like how the author created this perspective of the “bad guy” and twisted it around to see the reverse side of a well-known story, making Ravana a simply misunderstood demon. In terms of design, I love the book layout and title fonts to enhance the feel of a diary, and the images were well chosen and well placed. However, the texts throughout the storybook were not consistent with one another.

“Karma’s Courthouse: Action &Reaction” is a third-person perspective story of different cases of characters and their fate determined by the Judge of Karma. The title of this story drew me in because I was interested in how the author would attribute specific results in Indian epics to a reaction from karma. The introduction is well written and provided beautiful imagery of the setting in which the entire storybook will occur. I like how the author decided to use concepts of Indian epics throughout the story, but mainly rely on imagination to take each case to a uniquely different perspective. The overall design of the storybook goes perfectly with the theme and mood, and the only constructive criticism I have to offer is to provide an image of this “Judge of Karma” who, throughout the story, was hard to imagine. Out of all three storybooks, I liked this story's images the best because it enhanced the mystical feeling of the storyline. The image below is my favorite,

Image from "Karma's Courthouse"