All posts by Sumayyah

About Sumayyah

Sumayyah is an Information Assistant at the Vaughan Public Libraries. She's also a bookworm and author, constantly dreaming up a multitude of different stories and wrestling with finishing them.  |  Meet the team

Type Talk: Gamified Reads

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In honour of VPL’s ongoing Reading Challenge and this year’s Summer Reading Club, Type Talk is a series of blog posts on non-traditional or uncommon storytelling formats, genres or structures, which both challenge our idea of what storytelling is and will perhaps inspire us to try a new kind of media we might not have before.

Today’s post will be on Gamified Reads!

You may be wondering what on earth gamification is, but have no fear, Dr. Zachary Fitz Walter has a neat definition for you:

“Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. It can also be defined as a set of activities and processes to solve problems by using or applying the characteristics of game elements.

Games and game-like elements have been used to Educate, Entertain and Engage for thousands of years. Some classic game elements are; Points, Badges, and Leaderboards.”

gamify.com
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Type Talk: Non-Linear Narratives

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image-of-clocks
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

In honour of VPL’s ongoing Reading Challenge and this year’s Summer Reading Club, I bring you Type Talk, a series of blog posts about non-traditional or uncommon storytelling formats, genres or structures, which both challenge our idea of what storytelling is, and will perhaps inspire us to try a new kind of media we might not have before.

Today we’ll feature non-linear narratives, where events are told out of order, depict multiple timelines, or are heavily interspersed with flashbacks or flashforwards, to a point where it is the main vehicle for story delivery, such as in the Indian epic, The Mahābhārata.

(Note: VPL doesn’t have the complete version in English, but you can read a portion of this incredible poem, translated, in The Bhagavadgītā in the Mahābhārata.)

A non-linear narrative may also be a story containing stories within itself, and so there are multiple timelines being depicted, such as in the Arabian Nights, ‘Forrest Gump‘, and ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘. Another term for this is ‘frame narratives’.

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Booyah! Books on Secret Agent Superwomen

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via IMDB

June 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the acclaimed Disney television show Kim Possible, a staple of my childhood and one of the shows that marked the era as the golden age of Disney Channel originals (along with my other favourites: The Proud Family, Lizzie McGuire, and American Dragon: Jake Long).

Kim Possible had everything—the titular character was a cheerleader-super-spy with brilliant scientist parents and annoying/endearing twin brothers, a goofy best friend and his pet naked mole rat, a hilarious and vaguely inept supervillain, and his much cooler and way more competent henchwoman (who now has a filter in her name on Tiktok).

There was also loads of comedy and action, a great theme song and instantly recognizable ringtone, and memorable catchphrases (such as Ron’s “Booyah!” and Kim’s “So, what’s the sitch?”).

It also got a live-action film in 2019, but we’re going to pretend that doesn’t exist.

Kim Possible wasn’t just your average comedy-action animated TV show though. Kim was cool, both her parents were clever and supported her endeavors and intelligence, and Kim was allowed to have dimension: to be a cheerleader, a skilled martial artist, a good friend, a daughter to loving parents, a sometimes frustrated but ultimately loving older sister, a superhero, and feminine as well as smart and sporty.

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