Your introduction was wonderful I love how you presented your page. It is so clean and the colors all match nicely. Additionally, it is very easy to navigate your page. Further, it is very convenient how you have the comment wall link on each page. I really liked that and think I will include that in my own website. It definitely makes it easier for those who read the page to comment without flipping back and forth between the class page and the person's website. The images were so helpful with guiding me to understand what Hanuman is represented as in different areas. I honestly did not realize that these countries regard Hanuman and the Ramayana in their culture and religion. I knew of some similarities, but I am so excited to read what you have in store. You are, of course, very experienced in your writing and website creation. I hate to say that I have no true feedback except that I am so excited to read your website.
First off, what a striking picture for your home page! It really draws me in. I want to read whatever story this picture is from. The first story is fascinating. I like how it ties together a bunch of threads we've seen before, but never connected. I do have to wonder, though, how do the gods feel about Gautama turning their sons into monkeys? Do the gods claim Vali and Sugriva as their own, or are they just the product of a fun morning out? It would be interesting for you to comment on Indra and Surya's perspectives. I would also like to know why the gods chose to give Hanuman such gifts. Was it so he could be a took to aid Rama? Or was it because they thought that Swaha's curse was unjust, and were trying to lessen the blow? Also, how does Swaha know about Hanuman's fate with Vishnu? I do appreciate that you broke the story into "chapters", though. It really helps the reader to follow what's happening, especially since there are such drastic time and space jumps. Overall, and excellent story.
Laura, I am laughing at myself as I write this because I didn’t realize that the Hanuman/Ramakien stories were your contribution to the Storybook assignment until well after I clicked on the comment wall link. In fact, I experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance as I looked for the name of the author of what is apparently your work and all I saw was Laura Gibbs. It read, in my mind, as just links to the coursework pages and not as your posts! I even went as far as to recall how you had mentioned in one of your feedback emails to me that you were interested in the Thai version of Hanuman and that, perhaps you had mentioned the same thing to the author of this blog! So, here I am feeling rather silly and I am considering that I shouldn’t embarrass myself by admitting that all this just happened. But where is the fun on that? So, on with a real response to your storybook…this is super cool! I have become fairly obsessed with the Hanuman character as well (Perhaps he was playing mind tricks with me as I read your blog). I find Hanuman’s popularity in Indian and Thailand fascinating. What is it that makes this rascal so endearing? I was excited to read the stories that you provided in your blog. I am assuming that they are very concise versions of the originals, however, they do not read as abbreviated narratives. You have a wonderful way of minimalizing a story yet retaining enough interesting detail to keep your reader engaged and excited about what will happen next. Apparently, Hanuman is a player?! What will happen to the son of Suvannamaccha? What dark mystery awaits Hanuman in the underworld? I look forward to finding out!
You are an amazing story teller, and I can really tell you've done your research. I was really impressed how you were able to incorporate so many stories into one. I was able to recognize some elements of the story and learn about others and I really appreciated that. I also really like how you incorporated images into your story in order to break it up and make it more appealing. I am still trying to figure out how to incorporate images in my website, but after seeing yours, I definitely want to add to it. My favorite part of your first story was the details about how he came to be. For instance, the curse is what caused the monkey features while his other characteristics were gifts from gods. I'm interested to see his role in other Indian stories other than the Ramayana. His part in the Ramayana I read was so minimal compared to all of the other characters, yet he is such a staple to Indian culture. Therefore, he must appear in other stories somewhere! Great job!
For starters, I love the first image when I opened up the page of your storybook. I also like the setup, with the links to your individual stories on the side. Your use of imagery throughout looked like a lot of work, but it really did your story justice. This is the first time I've seen a storybook look like I'm scrolling through actual pages with the setup of your pages. It also helps the reader that you split everything up with subheadings. It really carries the reading. I also was very surprised to meet Hanuman's son. That was probably my favorite story out of the collection. Also, Hanuman is an awesome character to begin with and I like how you transferred his heroism into the stories. I was not expecting a son to appear. I thought your list of resources page was interesting. That was a good idea. Overall, your storybook looks like you've really put in a lot of work.
I loved the image you chose for your cover photo! I had never seen such a great and colorful representation of him! Where do you find most of the images you use? I normally just use google and then change the settings to only show things labeled for reuse. I loved the story about Hanuman and the mermaid. What a fun idea! I think it was very creative to come up with an entirely different idea for this story. I think that you really helped his character come to life for your readers because you gave him so much more depth of story than he had originally. He was one of my favorite characters so I loved that you were able to do this so well. It seemed like you took it straight out of the original version it matched so well. So fun to read and I can tell that you have worked very hard on your stories! I hope I get to read more of them in the future. Have a great rest of your semester!
It is hard to offer you any constructive criticism on your storybook project. It is well formatted, extremely informative, and interesting to read. As we have discussed in our previous correspondence, I have found a character that I am fascinated with in Hanuman. I don’t know why I am drawn to mischievous and adventurous personalities. My wife will tell you its because I can relate. I would find it fun to do a comparative study of Hanuman to other animal spirits such as the Raccoon in many native American cultures. I find the Ramakien stories even more fun to read than the Ramayana. Specifically, I was wholly entertained by your telling of the story of Hanuman meeting his fish tailed son in Maiyarap’s underworld kingdom. Also, I hadn’t quite realized that Hanuman was a bastard until reading The Birth of Hanuman. Coming to that realization made the father/son encounter even more endearing. After refreshing my browser enough times to get a comprehensive look at the random Hanuman artwork, I do have a suggestion for you after all. I hereby respectfully request that you include the image from the link below in your Hanuman gallery. It is a contemporary expression of our cosmic character that is straight out of a Thundercat’s crossover. It is the creation of a young Indian artist named Karan Acharya and it is having an impact on India’s social commentary.
I loved your retelling of Hanuman’s story! I had already read your first story, but I wanted to come back and see how Hanuman contributed to the rest of the adventures described in the Ramayana! I especially liked the little twist you added at the end in which it is revealed that Pirakuan is actually Swaha. I also really enjoy the fact that you chose to focus on Hanuman for your storybook, because he is such an underrated character in the Ramayana. He really does more to rescue Sita than Rama does, and yet Rama gets all the credit! The only comment I have to make is that the timeline for Hanuman’s son being born is a little confusing. Hanuman knows nothing of Suvannamacha until he begins to build the bridge for Rama, at the beginning of the war. Then, when the war is going badly (which might have been years later, that’s the part that’s unclear) Hanuman ends up having to go rescue Rama and he meets a warrior who turns out to be his son. The logistics of all this were confusing to me, mostly because I was unsure of how much time had passed between the story about the mermaids and the story in which Hanuman meets his son. I think clarifying how it came to be that Hanuman didn’t know his son would prevent the reading from getting distracted by this detail!
Hi Laura! First off I wanted to say you have the best website I've seen! It is so good I think you could even teach a class about it! haha. Anyway, I liked the way your stories all looked and read very well. All the images you had helped give me visuals for what was going on and what the people actually looked like. I sometimes have a hard time visualizing what is happening in stories, so your images really help me see what's going on. Your resources tab is very helpful also to help research additional information. I should have done that on mine, but I have all my points I need so I probably won't add it. All of your stories are expertly written as well as informative. I can't believe you teach the class and do all of this additional work! Thanks for the great semester and have a great summer!
Hello Laura, I think your awesome at telling your stories! It was very well written because I can tell you had put a lot of time doing your research and creating your stories. During the semester, I had read a lot about Hanuman so it was cool to find a storybook that was based off Hanuman over time. The first thing that attracted me to your storybook was the pictures because I am curious how other portrays Hanuman. I read your stories and I really like how detailed and informative you were in all of them. There was a lot of adjectives used, dialogues, and pictures to help understand the story better. I feel like I wished I came upon your storybook earlier to get great ideas to improve on my stories and site. I also liked how you provided additional resources on your tabs. Overall, you did a great job!
To minimize spam, comments are restricted to Google accounts only. You can also contact me at laurakgibbs@gmail.com or at Twitter: @OnlineCrsLady. Comments on older posts will be moderated.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteYour introduction was wonderful I love how you presented your page. It is so clean and the colors all match nicely. Additionally, it is very easy to navigate your page. Further, it is very convenient how you have the comment wall link on each page. I really liked that and think I will include that in my own website. It definitely makes it easier for those who read the page to comment without flipping back and forth between the class page and the person's website. The images were so helpful with guiding me to understand what Hanuman is represented as in different areas. I honestly did not realize that these countries regard Hanuman and the Ramayana in their culture and religion. I knew of some similarities, but I am so excited to read what you have in store. You are, of course, very experienced in your writing and website creation. I hate to say that I have no true feedback except that I am so excited to read your website.
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, what a striking picture for your home page! It really draws me in. I want to read whatever story this picture is from. The first story is fascinating. I like how it ties together a bunch of threads we've seen before, but never connected. I do have to wonder, though, how do the gods feel about Gautama turning their sons into monkeys? Do the gods claim Vali and Sugriva as their own, or are they just the product of a fun morning out? It would be interesting for you to comment on Indra and Surya's perspectives. I would also like to know why the gods chose to give Hanuman such gifts. Was it so he could be a took to aid Rama? Or was it because they thought that Swaha's curse was unjust, and were trying to lessen the blow? Also, how does Swaha know about Hanuman's fate with Vishnu? I do appreciate that you broke the story into "chapters", though. It really helps the reader to follow what's happening, especially since there are such drastic time and space jumps. Overall, and excellent story.
Laura, I am laughing at myself as I write this because I didn’t realize that the Hanuman/Ramakien stories were your contribution to the Storybook assignment until well after I clicked on the comment wall link. In fact, I experienced a moment of cognitive dissonance as I looked for the name of the author of what is apparently your work and all I saw was Laura Gibbs. It read, in my mind, as just links to the coursework pages and not as your posts! I even went as far as to recall how you had mentioned in one of your feedback emails to me that you were interested in the Thai version of Hanuman and that, perhaps you had mentioned the same thing to the author of this blog! So, here I am feeling rather silly and I am considering that I shouldn’t embarrass myself by admitting that all this just happened. But where is the fun on that?
ReplyDeleteSo, on with a real response to your storybook…this is super cool! I have become fairly obsessed with the Hanuman character as well (Perhaps he was playing mind tricks with me as I read your blog). I find Hanuman’s popularity in Indian and Thailand fascinating. What is it that makes this rascal so endearing? I was excited to read the stories that you provided in your blog. I am assuming that they are very concise versions of the originals, however, they do not read as abbreviated narratives. You have a wonderful way of minimalizing a story yet retaining enough interesting detail to keep your reader engaged and excited about what will happen next. Apparently, Hanuman is a player?! What will happen to the son of Suvannamaccha? What dark mystery awaits Hanuman in the underworld? I look forward to finding out!
Laura,
ReplyDeleteYou are an amazing story teller, and I can really tell you've done your research. I was really impressed how you were able to incorporate so many stories into one. I was able to recognize some elements of the story and learn about others and I really appreciated that. I also really like how you incorporated images into your story in order to break it up and make it more appealing. I am still trying to figure out how to incorporate images in my website, but after seeing yours, I definitely want to add to it. My favorite part of your first story was the details about how he came to be. For instance, the curse is what caused the monkey features while his other characteristics were gifts from gods. I'm interested to see his role in other Indian stories other than the Ramayana. His part in the Ramayana I read was so minimal compared to all of the other characters, yet he is such a staple to Indian culture. Therefore, he must appear in other stories somewhere! Great job!
For starters, I love the first image when I opened up the page of your storybook. I also like the setup, with the links to your individual stories on the side. Your use of imagery throughout looked like a lot of work, but it really did your story justice. This is the first time I've seen a storybook look like I'm scrolling through actual pages with the setup of your pages. It also helps the reader that you split everything up with subheadings. It really carries the reading. I also was very surprised to meet Hanuman's son. That was probably my favorite story out of the collection. Also, Hanuman is an awesome character to begin with and I like how you transferred his heroism into the stories. I was not expecting a son to appear. I thought your list of resources page was interesting. That was a good idea. Overall, your storybook looks like you've really put in a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteHi Laura,
ReplyDeleteI loved the image you chose for your cover photo! I had never seen such a great and colorful representation of him! Where do you find most of the images you use? I normally just use google and then change the settings to only show things labeled for reuse. I loved the story about Hanuman and the mermaid. What a fun idea! I think it was very creative to come up with an entirely different idea for this story. I think that you really helped his character come to life for your readers because you gave him so much more depth of story than he had originally. He was one of my favorite characters so I loved that you were able to do this so well. It seemed like you took it straight out of the original version it matched so well. So fun to read and I can tell that you have worked very hard on your stories! I hope I get to read more of them in the future. Have a great rest of your semester!
Laura,
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to offer you any constructive criticism on your storybook project. It is well formatted, extremely informative, and interesting to read. As we have discussed in our previous correspondence, I have found a character that I am fascinated with in Hanuman. I don’t know why I am drawn to mischievous and adventurous personalities. My wife will tell you its because I can relate. I would find it fun to do a comparative study of Hanuman to other animal spirits such as the Raccoon in many native American cultures.
I find the Ramakien stories even more fun to read than the Ramayana. Specifically, I was wholly entertained by your telling of the story of Hanuman meeting his fish tailed son in Maiyarap’s underworld kingdom. Also, I hadn’t quite realized that Hanuman was a bastard until reading The Birth of Hanuman. Coming to that realization made the father/son encounter even more endearing.
After refreshing my browser enough times to get a comprehensive look at the random Hanuman artwork, I do have a suggestion for you after all. I hereby respectfully request that you include the image from the link below in your Hanuman gallery. It is a contemporary expression of our cosmic character that is straight out of a Thundercat’s crossover. It is the creation of a young Indian artist named Karan Acharya and it is having an impact on India’s social commentary.
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/how-a-kerala-artists-angry-hanuman-became-a-rage-on-indias-roads-1711807.html
Hi Laura!
ReplyDeleteI loved your retelling of Hanuman’s story! I had already read your first story, but I wanted to come back and see how Hanuman contributed to the rest of the adventures described in the Ramayana! I especially liked the little twist you added at the end in which it is revealed that Pirakuan is actually Swaha. I also really enjoy the fact that you chose to focus on Hanuman for your storybook, because he is such an underrated character in the Ramayana. He really does more to rescue Sita than Rama does, and yet Rama gets all the credit! The only comment I have to make is that the timeline for Hanuman’s son being born is a little confusing. Hanuman knows nothing of Suvannamacha until he begins to build the bridge for Rama, at the beginning of the war. Then, when the war is going badly (which might have been years later, that’s the part that’s unclear) Hanuman ends up having to go rescue Rama and he meets a warrior who turns out to be his son. The logistics of all this were confusing to me, mostly because I was unsure of how much time had passed between the story about the mermaids and the story in which Hanuman meets his son. I think clarifying how it came to be that Hanuman didn’t know his son would prevent the reading from getting distracted by this detail!
Hi Laura! First off I wanted to say you have the best website I've seen! It is so good I think you could even teach a class about it! haha. Anyway, I liked the way your stories all looked and read very well. All the images you had helped give me visuals for what was going on and what the people actually looked like. I sometimes have a hard time visualizing what is happening in stories, so your images really help me see what's going on. Your resources tab is very helpful also to help research additional information. I should have done that on mine, but I have all my points I need so I probably won't add it. All of your stories are expertly written as well as informative. I can't believe you teach the class and do all of this additional work! Thanks for the great semester and have a great summer!
ReplyDeleteHello Laura, I think your awesome at telling your stories! It was very well written because I can tell you had put a lot of time doing your research and creating your stories. During the semester, I had read a lot about Hanuman so it was cool to find a storybook that was based off Hanuman over time. The first thing that attracted me to your storybook was the pictures because I am curious how other portrays Hanuman. I read your stories and I really like how detailed and informative you were in all of them. There was a lot of adjectives used, dialogues, and pictures to help understand the story better. I feel like I wished I came upon your storybook earlier to get great ideas to improve on my stories and site. I also liked how you provided additional resources on your tabs. Overall, you did a great job!
ReplyDelete