Ever Tangled With Lighting Illustrated and Interactive
Ever Tangled With Lightning The Bear and The Storm Illustrated and Interactive
Before my son saw the light of day I read to him or his mom's belly. I would articulate every word when pronouncing words, I made facial expressions as if he could see them, and I added sound effects. When my son was born, nothing changed when I would read to him except that now he could see me and of course I could now see his expressions as I made the story come to life.
As a result my son's vocabulary grew with leaps and bounds, eventually, we could not hide our words by spelling them because he knew what we were spelling, this happened at a very young age, now my son is a super reader, and his vocabulary is very impressive.
As a writer I wanted to pass the gifts of reading and vocabulary on to other children, so when I started writing my first book, I imagined the parent reading my books to their child with enthusiasm and turning every word into an explosive and expressive event. However, teenagers and parents loved my stories but felt they were missing something. The encouragement was unanimous the stories needed to be illustrated.
So, I set out to illustrate the book Ever Tangled With Lightning.
When I would complete a part of the illustration, I remembered how I use to read to my son, and without much thought, I began to animate the main character in the book. Then I added sound effects, narration followed. Then there was the question what if the child could replay a portion of the book whenever he wanted thus enjoying the book via touch, sound, narration, and animation.
This type of interaction would inevitably bring the book to life and if the parent was not able to read to the little child do to a busy schedule, the book although not a substitute for a mother or fathers voice would help the child learn to read and increase his or her vocabulary in the process. One other side effect would result from this type of book, a very active imagination.
One more thing, a little warning for children with over active imaginations.
See for yourself by clicking this link to get a taste of what an interactive book can do.
For other books by Arthur S. Newman visit the home page.
