Assignment #1

I really loved reading as a child. Whenever it was time to sleep, you would always find me facing the wall, cuddling a book. It was a nightly ritual that I grew up with. The books I read varied from school books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and of course children’s books that I would turn into movies in my mind.

The children’s story that made the biggest impact on me was “Ang Alamat ng Ampalaya”, written by Augie D. Rivera Jr. and illustrated by Kora D. Albano. It was about why the bitter gourd has such taste and a weird complexion.

To sum up the story, Ampalaya (the gourd) sprouted in the Vegetable Village one day, and he was very jealous of the other vegetables colors and flavours because he himself was just pale and tasted weird. He made a heinous plan to steal the other vegetables’ colors and flavours to make his own color and taste more interesting. However, his plan backfired when the colors and flavours he stole fought each other in his body which resulted to his bitter taste and wrinkled dark green complexion. It warns children about the evils of envy and greed. It also shows that if you do something bad, you are most likely to get punished for it in one way or another.

I am not sure if this story really affected me in such a way that it inculcated the message deeply into me. Honestly, I was never an envious child to begin with. I always had a certain set of needs and wants that don’t really depend on what I see on other children. But I am sure that this book is one of the reasons I started to like children’s books especially if they were illustrated.

I always liked drawing and reading when I was young. Later on in life, I developed a penchant for writing fictional stories. But I only realized that I wanted to write and illustrate for children a few years ago. Looking back, if there was one story book that I always liked, it would be this one. I feel happy and nostalgic every time I see a copy of this book lying around.

I remember that my copy was big, the kind used for storytelling to a larger audience rather than just one child. Maybe that is partly the reason why I liked it the most even if I had plenty of other books. The large pages and the colors attracted me very much. I used to play “I Spy” (a game wherein one will ask the other to find something in the pictures, usually minute details) with my cousin using this book. I read it over and over again until the pages didn’t hold together anymore.

In the first meeting, I think I already expressed that my dream was to write and illustrate for children’s books. But I also want to teach in preschool. Definitely, this book would be one of the stories I would like to read to my future students. I also hope to write and illustrate something like this in the future and read it to my younger cousins and maybe future nieces and nephews.