Read and create storybooks on the Internet
By Hanny Agustine
JAKARTA (JP): Reading is very important not only for adults, but also for children. Through reading, children learn people's characters, broaden their imagination, stimulate their creativity and expand their vocabulary. Many books, from traditional Indonesian legends like Sangkuriang and Jaka Tingkir to Snow White and Beauty and The Beast of the West, are our children's companions every night before falling asleep.
Now, the importance of reading is magnified through the presence of the Internet, which has thousands of stories ready to read and be bought on the Web.
Local stories are, unfortunately, not available on the Internet but many other children stories can be found there. In Disney's Amazing Site -- http://www.disney.com/DisneyBooks/Readastory/index.html -- you will find plenty of famous everlasting stories to buy beautifully designed and illustrated.
Books can be selected according to particular ages. There are interactive books for children under 4, with cute cards that can be pushed and pulled and adorable pocket books or fun-to-carry books in the shape of a key chain. Before you place an order, you can click the demo button to see the book. If you like it, you can buy the book by clicking an order at Barnes and Noble.com available on the same web page.
If you look for famous Disney stories such as Snow White, Aladdin, Lion King, Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Mickey Mouse or 101 Dalmatians, go to the For Kids section and find Disney Trivia2 in the Fun Activities section. Test your memory with the How Disney literate are you? game. Here, Disney trivia experts offers 999 questions to test your Disney knowledge and delight you with new information; if you choose Snow White, you will be asked: Who is the only dwarf with blue eyes ?
Another site to investigate is Cyberkids -- http://www.cyberkids.com/ -- that claims to be a site for creative children. As you see the picture of a futuristic vehicle in the purple Modern City, you will smell the futuristic elements of this site. In the Reading Room section, you can choose from Poem, Book and Novel, and Kidzeen.
In Book and Novel, all the books are sorted based on titles and authors. Choose a title and every chapter will be shown on screen, complete with beautiful color pictures. Unlike in Disney, here you get longer pages. You can move to another chapter merely by clicking the chapter number. In Poem, you can read poetry written by children aged between 8 and 12, and in Kidzeen, there are announcements for international contests for art, writing or multimedia for cyberkids or cyberteenagers, sponsored by Compaq.
If you are bored with children's static storybooks, you will get a nice surprise in the Theater section of this site, which provides animated and lively storybooks. In this section, you can watch the stories like a film. There is a beautiful short story by Wulia Beakoi, a nine year-old-girl, titled My Computerized House. You will see a colorful house with smoke coming from its chimney and bubble lights; Wulia is standing inside reading "I live in a computerized house. When I come home from school I press a button on my watch and the front door opens. When I put my books on the table in the living room, the table goes into my room and puts my books on my bed. When I want the TV on I just press a button on the chair. The TV comes on just to the right channel ..." Each sentence is visualized with Wulia's hand drawing pictures that you can maximize if you want to see more detail. The story is complete with the author's background, which tells us that she has four brothers, she likes math and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
Do you want to make a new, lively version of a single picture into a film? Keep going by following the instruction. Choose: Get shocked! I am ready to play!
To play, your computer must be equipped with Netscape Navigator 2.0, Macromedia Shockwave for Director and Macintosh or Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. If your computer does not have these, don't worry, you can download them by following the instructions. Once you are ready, you will be surprised to see Wulia's hand drawing, moving like a real film.
Creation
If you want to give your children another surprise, create your own storybooks. Imagine how happy they would be to become the star of their very own personalized storybook. Visit the My Book site -- http://members.aol.com/mybook629/cateng.htm -- to make your creation. Each book is lavishly illustrated in color and contains an imaginative 24-page story. What a great way to make reading fun. You can put your child's name on every page and even mention three of his or her best friends and hometown in the text.
The book is offered in long-lasting hardcover that is also washable. A standard book costs US$9.95, plus shipping charges to Indonesia at $8.95.
Titles available include Beauty and the Beast, Baby Jesus, Dinosaur Land and Teddy Bear Land.
On the order form, you will be asked to fill in your child's nickname, age, sex and the names of three friends or relatives, which will then be printed throughout the book.
Another attractive site available to create your own storybook is the Billy Bear Playground http://www.billybear4kids.com/ site. In the Read a Story section, you can learn to make your own storybook with: How to create your own storybooks. In this part, StoryMaker+ software will help you to create your own colorful drawings and text. It is a wonderful program and user-friendly. It has Scenery Editor, Shape Editor and Book Editor, where your child can set the scene of the story page. You can draw trees, grass, the sky or anything you want before writing the text. You can also add sound, music (including MIDI music) and even your voice to your animated storybook. The voices are created with a program called Goldwave. If your computer has not been installed with the software, this site will let you download it.