Prodigal Summer App

For a book design course, I was asked to design a phone/tablet application for a novel that would allow the user to experience the novel in at least three ways – one could be a simple reader user interface where the user reads the novel straight through from beginning to end, but the other two should allow for more interaction between the user and the text. I selected the novel Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver.

It’s a beautiful novel about the importance of human connection, which I love, but it also has a structure that made it uniquely appropriate for a hypertext experience because each chapter focuses on one of three couples. So, one of the alternate reading options for the novel is to read all of the chapters featuring one couple’s story, and then go back to read the others if you want. To make this version of the reading experience even more interactive, I created a Buzzfeed-style pop culture quiz, Find Your Mate, which would allow the user’s quiz answers to direct them to the perfect couple’s story for them.

Wildlife is also a fundamental part of this novel set in the Appalachian mountains where one of the main characters is a park ranger, another is a chestnut tree breeder, and a third is a new farm owner. An underlying thread throughout the novel is the movement of a family of coyotes and how they impact the experiences of the human characters, so the third option for interacting with the novel is to Track the Coyotes, and use their appearances in the novel as a way into the narrative.

Professor Amy Pointer
PBDS 642, Book Design, The University of Baltimore