Read and create storybooks on the Internet

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.