For the final project, Amelia and I chose to do an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe through the form of a children’s book. The reasoning for choosing this form of adaptation is due to always wanting to write a children’s book. Through this project, I was able to do this. The preparation for the book was more than I pictured it to be. Making the outline was more difficult than I pictured in my mind.
In this project, we told the story of a little boy named Robbie. The moral of the story in which we decided to use for the story was always obey your parents. Throughout the book, the story of Robinson Crusoe is told with a little twist. The age of the boy has been altered to appeal more towards young children. This specific children’s book is used both as an adaptation as well as to teach children a lesson. The story goes on to Robbie falling off the passenger boat that he got on and eventually ended up on an island where he only saw one person, who also got stranded there. The book also started to promote and teach teamwork as the two boys built a boat together in preparation to get home.
Once the story goes on, the boy’s face adversity and hardship when they come in contact with a storm. They learned to stay together and remain calm until the storm passed. In this part of the book, another moral was portrayed. The moral depicted that there is going to be adversity and hardship, but that is not a reason to give up ever. This is one of the strongest morals through the book in my opinion.
This book created a flashback for me to my childhood. It reminded me of the many books I would read that portrayed the same morals throughout. This story of Robinson Crusoe creates room for many morals to be placed inside when creating a children’s book. This gives room to the author and illustrator to have fun with the making of the book. Each children’s book has a specific meaning to a child upon reading it over and over during their childhood. In this case, the concept that remains in children’s head is what lesson is being taught at the end. There is always a happy ending in most children’s books and that is what they remember as they grow into young adults. The foundation of children’s books is what creates the kind of people we have walking around on this earth today.
This is what inspired me so much to create an adaptation to Robinson Crusoe. I remember many books from my childhood and the many lessons that were taught through them. For me, I have always wanted to create a book of my own for children to read and be able to reflect upon as they grow up into adults. I really enjoyed this assignment and being able to create this adaptation children’s book with Amelia.