My group members are Melissa, Yin Lam, Natasha and Exel. We decided that we should each take up different aspects of production to ensure consistency, as opposed to us illustrating different pages of the book.
Yin Lam drew, and Melissa traced the sketches. She compiled the design document as well. I coloured the tracings, and Natasha wrote the story. Exel was in charge sourcing for printers. Nonetheless, we helped each other as necessary.
When we first met up and started brainstorming for ideas, Natasha brought a children’s book, which has its main character as a penguin. We all thought the book was cute, and moreover, penguins are easier to draw than humans. (Penguins can be drawn simply and yet look cute, unlike… stickmen?) Thus we decided that we should use penguins too.
Next, we brainstormed about the story.
We decided to follow the suggested story, which is about teaching children how and why they should take care of their grandparents. Thus the story revolves around a little penguin and its family, who lives in igloos and would go fishing and skiing (stereotypical settings and activities we can think of, that are associated with the North/South Pole, also similar to Eskimos).
This is our initial plot:
There was once a little penguin named Peanut. He lives with his parents, and his Grandma lives in an igloo next to him. (We decided on the name Peanut, as both “peanut” and “penguin” start with “p”, and “peanut” is listed in a website that provides names for babies.)
One day, when Peanut brings his Grandma to school to celebrate Grandparents’ Day, he noticed that all his other friends have both Grandpa and Grandma with them, but he only has Grandma.
So that night, Peanut asked his mother where his Grandpa has gone. Mama (the rest of the penguin family don’t have names, as the focus of the story is on Peanut) then tells him the story (presented as a flashback).
A long time ago, before Peanut was born, Grandpa and Grandma asked Mama and Papa to go fishing with them. However, Mama and Papa wanted to go skiing instead, so they parted ways.
While Mama and Papa were skiing, an accident happened to Grandpa and Grandma. They were fishing when a polar bear attacked Grandma, and Grandpa was killed while defending her.
Luckily, there were other younger penguins who chased the polar bear away, so Grandma remained unscathed. (This is to show that the attack wouldn’t have happened if Mama and Papa, who were young, went fishing with Grandpa and Grandma.)
When Mama and Papa returned home and knew what happened, they were guilt-ridden and thus decided to make it up to Grandma.
(Back to the present) Mama then finishes the story by telling Peanut to be filial to Grandma. Peanut agrees.
Thus the next day, Mama and Papa brought Peanut to Grandma’s house, and Mama taught Peanut to do household chores for her. Grandma was happy, and praised Peanut.
And this is how Peanut learned to be filial.
Comment
Julian commented that the story focuses on the wrongdoings of the parents, when it should be on Peanut. Thus we had to change our story.
For the second version, we decided to remove the flashback, and also make Peanut a spoilt child.
Here’s the summary of the second version:
Peanut was a spoilt penguin. One day, he wanted his parents to bring him to ski. However, Peanut’s grandparents wanted Mama and Papa to go fishing with them. Peanut threw a tantrum. Thus, his parents had no choice but to bring him to ski. As a result, Grandpa and Grandma went fishing alone and Grandpa was killed by a polar bear. This made Peanut guilty, and so he learnt to do household chores for Grandma so as to make it up to her.
Comment
This is not suitable as Grandpa was killed because Peanut made a different choice: to go skiing and not fishing. It’s better if Grandpa was killed because Peanut did something morally wrong.
And so we changed our story again. (This is the last version.)
Summary of the final story:
Peanut was a spoilt penguin. One day, he wanted his parents to bring him to ski. However, Grandpa wanted Mama and Papa to go fishing with them. Peanut threw a tantrum and snatched Grandpa’s fishing rod. Then he ran outside and threw it into a fishing hole. Grandpa was dismayed when he finally caught up with Peanut. At that time, a polar bear appeared. Peanut was scared and Grandpa protected him. However, Grandpa was hurt in the process. (We decided that it was too morbid for a character to die in a children’s story, moreover, making up for Grandpa’s death by doing household chores seem too trivial.) This made Peanut guilty as he was rude to Grandpa, yet Grandpa sacrificed himself for Peanut. So Peanut helped Grandma do household chores while Grandpa was in hospital. Peanut also learnt his lesson and became filial ever since.
Natasha wrote the first version of the story. Melissa then added rhymes, and I finalized the story.
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