Low Budget and High Entertainment

 

It never fails to amaze me how receptive children are to puppet shows.  In a world of high tech and special effects,  children seem willing to forgo their savvyness when in the presence of puppets on stage.  I'm speaking from experience when I make such a claim.  I have performed in all manner of rigged-up settings: from behind a chair with the puppets poked through the back rails and the chair seat as the stage, crouched behind tables, and stretching my arms over the tops of book shelves. Many times the children can see me.  It never really seems to matter where or how visible I am, or even how low-budget.  Perhaps the more bizarre the rig, the more enjoyable the show.  

This week in the Learning Center I have been performing The Three Little Fishies and the Big Bad Shark.  This is definitely a low-budget show.  The ocean scene backdrop is an enlarged photocopy colored with markers, and the three houses made of two-dimensional paper seaweed, shells and stones, are each taped to a metal bookend to hold them upright.  We did manage to scrounge up three fish puppets, but no shark.  The next best thing is a paint-stick puppet: a lovely shark picture mounted on oaktag and taped to a paint stick.  Voila!  Instant puppet, and the children are hooked!  No pun intended.

The delight of the children is palpable; they are joyfully receptive to stories of any kind.  They love to answer the puppets’ call for help from the audience.  Their laugh-out loud predictions and heartfelt warnings to the puppets spur me on.  I'm really not sure who is having the most fun.

As we wind down the school year, I've been encouraging the children to keep reading over the summer, to keep their reading "muscles" strong, and to keep alive the joy for stories.  I wish that no child ever lost that magic feeling for stories.  It's part of my mission to keep it alive.

Anna Dewdney Visits EES

On February 12th, EES had a very special visitor!  Thanks to the generous support of our very own PTO, Vermont children's book author and illustrator, Anna Dewdney, spent the entire day with us.  Anna is the author of the well-known picture books Llama Llama Red Pajama, Llama Llama Mad at Mama, and Llama Llama Misses Mama, among others.

Ms. Dewdney shared with us how she gets her ideas, and where she does her writing and illustration.  She read aloud to us several of her books, including a sneak preview of her latest Llama Llama creation, Llama Llama Holiday Drama, which will be published Fall 2010.  We were the very first school in the world (!!!) to hear this story.  The proofs for this newest book had just arrived in the mail earlier that week, so they were literally hot off the press.  How cool is that?!   One very astute child was very concerned that the pages were not folded and stapled.  A fabulous observation coming from a Kindergartner.  Anna described the stages of how a book is made, and showed us with these large proofs how they will be folded and then sewn into "signatures" to make a 32 page picture book.

Ms. Dewdney also illustrated for us while she spoke with the audience.  Children watched while her characters came alive on paper.  We are very pleased that we could keep several of these drawings, which we hope to frame and display in the Learning Center.

Anna Dewdney's newest published picture book is Roly Poly Pangolin, written in her signature rhyming style, about a baby pangolin.   What's amazing is how many people had never heard of pangolins, including myself, until we read this book.  A pangolin is an endangered mammal that lives in parts of India and southeast Asia, has scales for protection and an incredibly long tongue, much like an anteater (but they are not related). Click here to visit Anna's webpage about pangolins. Anna traveled to Vietnam to Cuc Phuong National Park to see pangolins up close, and has pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds of the sale of her book to saving pangolins.  Visit the website SavePangolins.org to find out more information about saving the pangolin population.

I am very pleased that the children and teachers of EES had this enriching opportunity to meet and hear Anna Dewdney speak.  And I am so glad that Anna took time out of her busy schedule to drive up this way and spend the day with us.  Thank you, Anna!