“Happy Birthday to Emily, Happy Birthday to you!”
Smiling happily, Emily blew out the six candles on her birthday cake. Emily is the richest girl in the small town she lives in. Her mother invited her classmates to celebrate her birthday for her at their big house. They are Bonnie, Hannah, Natalie and Johnnie.
“Look! These are all the present my Daddy bought for me this year,” Emily bragged as she started to unwrap her first present. It was a HOPE bear, the most popular and expensive toy in town.
“Isn’t this the latest HOPE Bear? This is so cool!” exclaimed Bonnie, as she stretched her hand out to touch the toy bear.
Emily slapped Bonnie’s hand away with hers.
“Don’t touch it! My Daddy bought it for me for my birthday and it is very expensive. What if you dirtied it with your hand? Can your family afford to buy a new one for me?” Emily said, while hugging the bear tightly against her chest defensively.
There was silence. Everyone was shocked and did not know what to say. Embarrassed and upset, Bonnie stamped her feet and cried, “Fine! I won’t touch your toys then. You can play by yourself for all you want!”
Bonnie ran out of the house crying. “Why did you do that for? You are so mean and selfish!” Johnnie scolded.
Johnnie, Hannah and Natalie ran after her, leaving Emily alone.
Angry with her friends for leaving her behind, Emily banged the table and accidentally spilled the glass of coke onto her dress and toy bear. An ugly brown stain formed on the bear.
“Yuck! It’s so dirty and ugly now!” Emily screamed and threw the stained bear into the wastepaper basket in her room.
That night, Emily dreamt that all the toys in her room came to life, including the stained toy bear. The bear climbed out of the wastepaper basket and gathered all the toys. After a while, all her toys started marching towards the door.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Emily shouted. “You don’t take good care of us nor let others play with us. You are so selfish and mean! So we are going to leave you and find new owners who will cherish us. Goodbye!” explained the bear.
Emily jumped up from her bed. It was already morning. She looked around and was shocked to see all her toys missing. Recalling the dream that she had, she rushed out of her house and begun searching for her toys.
After a few hours of searching, Emily saw her friends walking towards a playground near her house and ran up to them.
“My toys have gone missing. Can you help me find them?” Emily asked. Still angry with her, her friends ignored Emily and walked away.
Tired, dirty and hungry, Emily finally broke down in tears. Feeling sorry for her, her friends approached Emily and comforted her.
“We will help you look for your toys,” Natalie said, after hearing Emily’s story. Holding hands, they went from door to door to ask about the missing toys. But no one knew where the toys were.
“Let’s go back to your house, Emily. It’s getting dark,” Hannah suggested. “We will look for it again tomorrow.”
When they reach Emily’s house, everyone was surprised to see all the toys arranged neatly on the shelves. Emily ran towards them and picked up the clean HOPE Bear and exclaimed, “Why are they here? What happened to that ugly brown stain?”
“I washed them of course!”
The girls turned and saw Emily’s mother standing at the door. “Some of the toys are quite dusty. Since it’s such a sunny day, I thought I should give them a good scrub,” Emily’s mother explained. Where have you been anyway, Emily?” she continued.
Emily started wailing after she picked up the cleaned HOPE BEAR, “I thought all my toys had left me because I was too selfish!”
From that day onwards, Emily became a generous girl and often shares her new toys with her friends.
Total word count: 673
Storyboard
The team had opted for a two-page presentation style for the storybook to allow more reading room and "freedom" for the mind to wonder around and be creative. After the first draft of the text of the storybook is completed, it was used a guideline to design the different scenes for the different pages. The team had drew a very rough sketch using stick-mans for the rough. Bubble-like areas with horizontal lines in them were initially erected out for the placement of text in the pages.
In order to save time and resources, the design of the various characters and toys are designed and drawn on a tablet PC and transferred directly to Adobe Illustrator for further processing. Therefore, there are no rough sketches or design drafts for the characters.
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