Week 1: Storybook Favorites - A Look at Some of the Best

Being in Indian Epics last semester, I am familiar with storybooks but was still very excited to see the storybooks for the Myth-Folklore class.  The storybooks that I chose as some of my favorites were Cupid on Trial, Fairytale Case Files, and The Prince Diaries, although all the storybooks were very well-written.  The storybooks that I chose stood out to me because first of all, the titles were interesting.  Besides that, each storybook was unique, which I will go into in further detail below.
The first of my favorite storybooks that I read was Cupid on Trial.  The design was simple and allowed the text to be easily read.  I knew about Cupid and Venus but knew very little of the other characters so this was a fun way to look at them.  The introduction definitely grabbed my attention and I appreciate how the author provided such great dialogue for the court but also broke away from the courtroom dialogue to provide his own thoughts and added some humor with it as well.  The pictures were very appropriate throughout the storybook and were placed at a great place on the page.  I especially like the ending and how the ruling was resolved - I did not see that ending coming, but it was just perfect.  The only thing I would improve about the storybook is a typo I found, but I understand it's hard to catch everything.
The second of my favorite storybooks was the Fairytale Case Files.  For starters, the introduction was very well written - it started off with questions to grab my attention.  The design of the storybook was also great and I liked the dark background because it really made the words pop.  I know lots of fairytales, but all of these had some sort of twist/was from a different perspective which I absolutely loved! I also thought the bit of humor thrown in was well-timed and not over- or under-done.  This storybook is wonderful and I was sad when I reached the end.
The final storybook of my top three favorites was The Prince Diaries.  I've seen the Princess Diaries (the movie series) so I thought that this would be quite interesting.    I did like the diary entries quite a bit, but I didn't love the disconnect between each entry.  However, the stories themselves and design were great! It's also a very creative topic!

Image from Anderson's Fairy Tales

Source:  Wikipedia