Flynn and the Marvellous star is retelling
of Cinderella, the key changes to it being the removal of seventeenth century
aristocratic values, which I identified in my critical writing, and remove this
bias, which is detrimental to the working class.
This is achieved by replacing the setting,
characters and the end moral, in order to erase these values. But at the same
time keeping the narrative and appropriating it to teach children that
happiness doesn’t just come from being passive - waiting on Prince Charming’s -
but from being an active individual.
Although the interactivity in the book is
limited, it’s purpose is to further the story and for it to be more engaging
for children. As my target audience is 3-5 year olds it allows them to act out
the story with the book without having to read the words.
Yellow and purple were used, as they are
colours associated with space, while at the same time they are gender neutral,
both the boy and girl characters are the same to establish that colours are
just colours, and not blue for boys and pink for girls at an earlier age.
The story of revolves around a gift from an
uncle, given to Flynn and his siblings to share. However, they have
other plans and want to keep it from Flynn. He finds them outside one night using
it, and he spots a new star, however they do not see the bigger picture while
looking into the telescope. Flynn gives him self away and they put him under
the stairs while they attempt to claim the star for themselves. Flynn escapes
and takes the reporter to see for her self, wanting the star for everyone to
share.
The story uses rhymes to allow the story to
flow easy and to entertain. Although it doesn’t overly make use of rhymes, its
purpose is simply for engagement, getting children to want to hear the words
again and repeat the moral of the story.
As well as that, the presentation of the
writing had to flow well with the illustrations to allow for it to not be
noticeably jarring. The use of waves allowed for the writing to follow through
page after page while being unnoticeably separate from them.
Each character was representative of the
characters in the story of Cinderella, the siblings been the evil step sisters,
Flynn being the ‘Cinderella’ character whose oppressed by her siblings. The
reporter is reflective of Prince Charming, however it is through Flynn’s act of
spotting the star, which brings the reporter and not an act of the reporter
bringing Flynn. This is the critical difference.
For the characters in the story, the boys
have rounded heads while the girls have pointed heads. The purpose of this was
for easy identification, but at the same time without giving any symbolism in
the process. For example: Blue for boys. Because the character designs are
simple, it required that they are easily distinguishable like this. As well as
the head shape, the hairline was also critical in playing its part with similar
purposes.
Because how of the heads are designed, the
rest of the bodies didn’t need any identification, which allows me to use the
same bodies for everyone, only changing height and size to fit the character.
This approach proved to be incredibly beneficial and flexible, allowing me to
quickly put together varying character designs. As well as that, the characters
didn’t hold any influence in regards to what boys should and shouldn’t wear,
because everyone is equal.
As well as that, the aesthetic was also
very flexible, using similar rules to how the characters are created, yellow
for the base and purple for detail, it was easy to create props and other
things out of it. For example: Archie the dog.
