Sylvester and the Magic Pebble: A Children's Story Experience
ITP Camp
Digital Experience, Storytelling
Summer 2020
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is one of my all-time-favorite childhood stories. I remember when my mom used to read the book to me before bed time. I reproduced the spirit of the story by creating an interactive version that progresses the reader through the story as they hold in-world elements up to your computer’s camera. I wanted to recreate a fond memory into something interactive for other children to enjoy.
Skills Used:
- Storyboarding
- Html, js, css
- Trained ML Model through Google’s Teachable Machine
You can visit the experience here.
The Experience
On the first page of the story, Sylvester finds a red magic pebble and wishes it would stop raining. I didn't have a red magic pebble but I improvised using an orange ping pong ball. Readers should hold up the "magic pebble" and say "I wish it would stop raining." This will take you to a sunny page!
On the second page, Sylvester wants to test if the magic pebble is, indeed, magic so he wishes it would start raining again. Readers are asked to hold up the illustration of Sylvester in the rain and say "I wish it would rain again."
As Sylvester is running home to tell his parents about the pebble he runs into a lion. I didn't have a lion stuffed animal but a tiger will do.
Sylvester panics when he sees the lion and wishes he were a rock. After days and weeks go by, his parents send out a search party of dogs to find their son.
As the months go by, Sylvester's parents become hopeless. One day, they have a picnic by Sylvester, who is still a rock. They place the magic pebble on the rock and Sylvester wishes he was back to a donkey. The family is reunited and they can continue on with their lives. To match the sweet ending, the reader is supposed to hold hands with your reading buddy and at the end, there's a special song that plays.