The instant gratification inherent to platforms like movies, TV, and apps—all available at a moment’s notice to fend off boredom—may have rendered books an obsolete, or at least less desirable, format in the eyes of many. ButThere are plenty of classic books out there to satisfy all curiosities, and new ones are being put out every day. Recently, for example, Nerdist has shared a Fallout cookbook, a How To Train Your Dragon graphic novel, and a book that teaches you how to make adorable Pokémon from pompoms.
All that said, though, I will concede that there is room for books to modernize, and the New York Public Library realizes that too. Audiobooks are one way of doing that, and now the NYPL has come up with another: They’ve taken to their Instagram account to turn a number of classic novels into gorgeous and convenient social media stories (via Gizmodo), starting with Alice and Wonderland (the first part of which you can watch here).
As you can see in the above video, Alice in Wonderland is just one of NYPL’s “InstaNovels,” as they call them, with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis also coming ’round the bend. It’s a neat idea: Present the text with eye-catching visuals in the form of an Instagram story, because if the kids are already spending all day on Instagram, you may as well put some classic literature in their faces.
It’s a sort of enhanced e-book with animated illustrations, and the slick stories ought to be a nice distraction from the more mindless social media content you tap, swipe, and scroll through. The first part of Alice in Wonderland can be watched now.
What other books would you like to see presented this way? Let us know what you think down in the comments!
Featured image: Disney
