Abiyoyo with Giant Feet, Hands, and Hat

Book:  Abiyoyo by Pete Seeger, illustrated by Michael Hays

Puppets:  none

Props:  Stuff to make someone look a little bit like a giant

Presenters:  two

Audience:   Family Storytime  (mostly 3-6 year olds)

Abiyoyo is one of a handful of stories I tell that I actually heard as a child.  We had the Pete Seeger version on a record (it's possible it might even have been a reel to reel tape!).  It was too scary at first and I would leave the room at "the sun rose blood red over the hills," but eventually I got used to it.  I've told it solo a few times over the years, but at my current library Terri and Sheila came up with a way to tell it as a two-person tale, and Terri and I did this way for our "Monster" storytime theme.  

The first part is just telling and acting out.  I narrated, introducing the boy and his father.  While I described the boy's annoying ukelele playing, Terri acted as the boy.  We considered using a real ukelele, but decided that pretending works almost as well.  I talked about the Father's tricks with his magic wand while Terri became the townspeople he tricked.  She mimed drinking a glass of water, sawing a log, and sitting in a chair.  I did a "Zoop!  Zoop!" with my want (also imagined, no prop) and she acted like the things just disappeared.  The second half begins right after the boy and his father are ostracized (there's our vocabulary word of the week!).

While I tell the audience how the townspeople liked to tell stories about giants, Terri zips off behind the backdrop and gets her Abiyoyo gear together.  Instead of trying to actually become tall, Terri puts on giant-sized gloves, giant-sized feet, and a giant sombrero.  She makes her entrance by sticking one giant hand into sight then stomping out into full view.  

Her kind of silly appearance works just right, as the kids who might have been a bit scared at the build up to the giant's arrival get that it's all in fun, but we still got the suspense up for a while, which is a key part of the story.


 While I narrate Abiyoyo's path towards town, Terri stomps around.  We have some cut-out sheep, cows, and goats that we set up (they're about three feet high) and she knocks them all over.  In the original story he eats them, but this works too.

When the Father and Son run out to meet Abiyoyo, I get on my knees, so I'm looking up at the giant.  I play my pretend ukulele, Terri dances in a silly giant style that's a little too funny for me to keep a straight face, but that's okay.   Click here for a video clip (no audience) sample:  

When she dances so fast that she falls over, Terri lies down mostly behind the backdrop, but with her giant feet sticking out so everyone can see them.  As the Father, I go up with my magic wand, and as I Zoop!  Zoop!, Terri pulls her feet all the way behind the backdrop and "Abiyoyo disappeared!"

We finish up with the people welcoming the Father and Son back into town, and a final singalong version of the Abiyoyo song, which is a little hard for me because I'm a bit out of breath and even harder for Terri because she just got through dancing like a giant, and then dancing faster.  

For the telling, I pretty much went straight with Pete Seeger's words, though I did have to edit the "bring your damn ukulele," which is how he told it on the record, to "darn ukulele" as it is in the book.  At five years old I thought it was pretty cool that Pete Seeger used one of the bad words right there on a record, and I guess I still can't quite bring myself to use it with kids.  

Fly Guy and Buzz

Book:  A Pet for Fly Guy  by Tedd Arnold

Puppets:  Fly, Octopus, Monkey, Porcupine, Dog, Cat, Frog, Chipmunk, Spider, Worm (can substitute for all but Fly)

Props:  Garbage Can, Banana (or substitute food), Bags for three puppets

Presenters:  Two

Audience:  Family Storytime

Tedd Arnold's "Fly Guy" books are excellent, but most don't translate too easily into read alouds or a two-person act-out kind of thing.  But A Pet for Fly Guy is written as a picture book, rather than an early reader, and the structure is just right.  I've used as a storytime read aloud several times, so when Sheila and I had a "Friends" theme for Family Storytime, I thought we could try it with a bigger production.

I was Buzz, and Sheila used this cool fly puppet she made some time ago (for Old Black Fly) on a bent up wire hanger for easy control.  The story divides neatly into sections.  For the first part, Buzz introduces Fly Guy and talks about the cool things they do together.  Fly Guy responds with variations of "Buzz," which is all he can say.  So we act a few things out:  playing chase, hide and seek, and eating snacks.

In the next part, Buzz tells Fly Guy about all the great pets kids have.  We had three bags with puppets in them and asked one volunteer to come up and show the audience their pet.  This was a good simple way to do the child volunteer thing, because we could pick them in the middle of the story, and the thing they had to do, pull puppet out of bag and show audience, was simple and cute.  Then we sat that first one down and chose another.  We used a Monkey, Porcupine, and Octopus, but any three unusual/silly animals for pets would do. 

The next phase is a visit to the Pet Shop, where Buzz tries to choose a good pet for Fly Guy.  We just had our backdrop with a Pet Shop sign and I went behind it and came out with a new pet each time.  We used Cat, Dog, and Frog; substitutes could work, but they should be pretty typical pets this time.  Each time the pet interacts with Fly Guy in a bad way:  Dog licks, Cat pounces, Frog chases.  We tried to keep plenty of movement going on, and Fly Guy responded with appropriately toned buzz-y noises each time. 

The final set of puppets are ones that Fly Guy chooses when they visit the Park.  We used another backdrop with a tree in front for the park.  For these, Sheila took Fly Guy behind the backdrop, then Fly Guy popped out on top with a pet.  Our choices were Chipmunk (too loud), Worm (too slimy), and Spider (too scary).

For the conclusion, it's just Buzz and Fly Guy again, and this time Fly Guy decides that Buzz will be the perfect pet for him.  

You don't really need the two backdrops to do this, and using two puppets per section instead of three would work okay too.  I'm pretty sure this will also work as a one-person story with puppets, and hope to try that soon....

Finally getting to use a "Fly Guy" book in Family Storytime gave us the opportunity to promote other books with F. G. and Buzz, since we always have two tables full of books available for check out.  And with Fly Guy we could promote not just the early readers, but also the non-fiction "Fly Guy Presents" series, which at least some of our picture-book crowd hadn't heard of yet...

Dark Stairs, Mice, a Monster, and Music

Book:  The Dark at the Top of the Stairs  by Sam McBratney,    Illustrated by Ivan Bates
Puppets:  None
Props:  None
Technology:  Projector and Scans; Music and Sound Effects in PowerPoint
Presenters:   Two or more
Audience:  Family Storytime

For our annual "Slightly Spooky Storyime" we decided to try The Dark at the Top of the Stairs  (the Sam McBratney picture book, not the William Inge play), .  It's been one my favorites suspenseful/funny read alouds for a long time, but we thought it could make a good Act-Out with Scans.  It would have been okay, but then Brad added some just right music bits and it really came together.  We did it with six(!) people on our big Halloween event, and the rest of the week Terri and I were joined by the newest member of our team, Deborah Gitlitz (our new bilingual outreach librarian, and also an excellent storyteller).  It can also work fine with two people, though.

 In the book, an old Mouse takes three eager/scared Little Mice slowly up the dark stairs in the cellar, where a monster supposedly awaits.  We edited and ad-libbed a bit, but tried to keep a lot of McBratney's excellent storyteller's voice in there.   For example, I always love the line where the Old Mouse agrees to bring the mice up the stairs, speaking "as if he knew that sooner or later all young mice will try to see the dark at the top of the stairs."  I'm not big on messages in storytime, but it's a nice little nudge to the grown-ups to let their kids do scary things once in a while.

Before they go, the Old Mouse tries to talk them into going to the meadow or swinging on the grass.  The music Brad chose for this opening was "Morning Song" from Rossini's William Tell Orchestra, which gives it a nice, light, carefree mood.  



When the story moves into the cellar, the music switches to "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg, which is just the right amount quiet and mysterious.  We only used the kind of tiptoe-y part at the beginning, not the big ending.  It's always neat to see how much of an impact a well chosen piece of music can make.

I was the Old Mouse, and also narrated.  Deborah and Terri were Cobb and Berry-Berry....we axed Hazel in the three-person version.  We scanned illustrations of the stairs, and tiptoed around in front of it to kind of simulate going up the stairs.   Each new page-turn / scanned image brings the mice further up the stairs.  And with each section there's a new bit of dialogue as they get more scared:

We didn't do any costumes or anything to make us look like mice...we counted on the story and the images to convey that.  And as the story progressed, we didn't really try to act out ascending stairs.  We wanted to stay facing the audience, or sideways at least.  So we just sort of crept in place, making sure to stay on the sides of the screen, without blocking it.

The pace of the story works really well with a mostly preschool age audience.  The scariness the mice show is kind of real, but also kind of self-generated, so the audience is tense, but not really really scared.   When they get close to the stop of the stairs, with the mice bickering and getting excited, the Narrator can build up to the climax with a louder, more ominous voice:   "And then....Something Happened."   At the same time, the music abruptly stops.  The door opens and the monster is finally revealed.

For the "monster," which of course is a cat, we put a black box over the image in the PowerPoint slide, then animated it so it slowly rose to reveal the Cat.  Another click added a "Meow" word balloon, plus a sound effect of a real cat's meow.


At which point all of us mice kind of ran around in a tizzy for a while and then finally flopped onto the floor "in a jumble and a heap."  

The tale has a very satisfying ending, as the Old Mouse asks the Small Mice where they would like to go the next day and "none of them mentioned the Dark at the Top of the Stairs."

With our "Slightly Spooky Stories," we usually like to get the kids just a little bit scared, but then have them able to say after the story is over:  "I wasn't really scared....even though they probably were."  This story seemed to hit that pretty well....  

The Hat with Clothesline

Book:  The Hat  by Jan Brett
 Puppets:   None
Props:   Character Signs, Various Articles of Clothing, Clothesline
Presenters:  2, plus child volunteers (could be 1 plus kids)
Audience:   Family Storytime (mostly 3-7)

Brad and I chose to use Jan Brett's The Hat for a "clothing" themed Family Storytime.  Jan Brett's website has a bunch of great resources for teachers and storytellers, including neat and simple printouts for the animals from The Hat.  They're designed for reader's theater, but we used them in a slightly different way.  We printed out one of each, laminated, and strung some yarn through for the kids to wear.   Then we strung a clothesline across the stage.  We just tied string to two our our backdrops, but I'm sure there are other ways to work that out.

The story is pretty simple, and we simplified it a bit more to make it work with child volunteers.  Each of the kids got an animal sign and stood beneath the empty clotheline.  Brad narrated while I managed kids and clothes.  One by one, I pull each piece of clothing out of a basket and hang one above each animal.  Then Brad describes how the sock blew off an fell on Hedgehog.  And I unclip the sock and place it on Hedgehog/Child's head.

Then it moves to the other animals seeing Hedgehog's cool "hat," and wanting one for themselves.  And one by one, the animals spot the clothes above them and I put each one on their head.  We considered not revealing the clothes until it was time for each child to "wear" it....keeping the shirt in the basket, for example, until it was that animal's turn for a hat.  It actually was much more fun to have all of the clothes in sight from the start, though.  You could watch it all dawn on the audience in different stages, as they anticipated that each child would soon have a silly hat.  The child volunteers went through the same process, as they put the pieces together and realized what they were each about to wear.  Of course, leaving the underwear for last build up the suspense even more.  I really wish we'd taken a photo of the kids, before the "hats" and after, but I think you can imagine it.

The story ends with me coming to take down the clothes, spotting the silly looking animals, and collecting the pieces one by one.  This is one of those stories where the props and the kids really make it work.  Though Brad and I split up the narration and child/prop management, those could easily be done by one person.  So all you really need is a clothesline, a color printer, and some cute kids.  

Lo-Jack and pirate puns

Book:  Lo-Jack and the Pirates  by William Hooks,  Illustrated by Tricia Tusa
Puppets:  none
Props:  Pirate Costumes, Two Paper Eyes, Yo-Yo, Santa Hat, Squeaky Hammer (or similar), Flagon, Toast
Presenters:  two
Video:   short sample excerpt
Audience:  Family Storytime

We do a Pirate-themed Family Storytime every year, but it's been a Terri/Brad presentation for several years.  This time Sheila and I took a turn, and I thought back to my first pirate event, which was probably 20 years ago, and a book that's out of print now but was one of the few pirate early readers on the shelves back then.  Lo-Jack and the Pirates is sort of like Amelia Bedelia:  Lo-Jack is hijacked to be a pirate's cabin boy and gets everything wrong.  The book is great for 1st and 2nd graders, but younger kids miss some of the puns, so we simplified a bit for our mostly-preschool audiences and acted it out with a few props.

I was Captain Grimm, and basically I try to teach Lo-Jack some pirate stuff and she gets it wrong:

Pirate lingo:  "Pirates say aye-aye!":   Lo-Jack holds two goofy looking cut out "eyes."  Get it?  Most of the kids did, though not all.

Pirate songs:  "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me":   Lo-Jack gets a yo-yo and sings "Yo yo, yo yo, a pirate likes to play."  Then gets a Santa hat and it's:  "Ho ho, ho ho, a pirate Santa Claus."

Pirate jobs:  "You can be a look out and shout "ahoy" when you see land.:   Lo-Jack steps on a stool, looks at the audience and shouts "a boy!" while pointing at one of the kids.

And of course with each mistake Captain Grimm gets more impatient.  When he says "Blow me down!", Lo-Jack tries to blow him over; Captain G. says he's too small to blow down a mighty pirate, so Lo-Jack grabs a squeaky hammer and bops him.  When the Captain says it's time to Loot and Pillage the people in the audience, Lo-Jack convinces him that they are nice people and they shouldn't do that.

So Captain Grimm turns nice and the story ends with C. G. proposing a Toast to Lo-Jack, which is when Lo-Jack grabs a couple of pieces of toast.

The humor really worked just fine for the audience.  For those who maybe didn't get the verbal humor, there was enough going on visually with the props and people that it was still funny.  Like maybe a three year old doesn't register that Lo-Jack got "yo ho" mixed up with "yo yo" because they sound the same, but knows that pirates don't play with yo yos, and that's pretty funny anyway.

Click here for a short, not-well-edited video clip we did as a sample.

From Head to Toe with Puppets, Spanish, and Participation

Book:  From Head to Toe  by Eric Carle

Puppets:  Giraffe, Gorilla, Monkey, Horse, Crocodile, and/or a few others

Props:   Animal Signs in Spanish (optional)

Presenters:   Two  (though it works fine with one)

Audience:  Family Storytime (mostly 3-6 year olds)

We try to slip in bilingual stories from time to time during our Family Storytime, and Eric Carle books seem to work especially well for this.  From Head to Toe is an especially fun one because it also gets the kids up and doing stuff.

For our two-person version, Sheila led the kids in trying to do the stuff that the animals do, while I provided the animal examples with puppets from behind a backdrop.

First the animal appears above the backdrop, and names itself:   "I am a Crocodile."  Then I hold up a sign with the word in Spanish, while Sheila says the word in Spanish and prompts them to repeat it.

Then I say what I can do:   "And I can wriggle my hips."   And the puppet wriggles as well as a puppet can, which isn't that well, but good enough.  Meanwhile, Sheila demonstrates that for the audience, prompting them to do the same.  And that's the pattern we follow for all of the animals.  I played around a bit with the puppets, having them peek out from different spots before they're entrance, but tried not to overdo that because it can get too distracting.  

And that's really all there is to it.  Once you've got the signs made, the puppets in order, and an audience, you're all set.  We did make a few adjustments to the animals in the book.  We skipped Buffalo and Camel, partly because we just needed to shorten the whole thing, but also:  we don't have those puppets.  We don't have a Donkey either, but liked that movement (kids put hands on the floor and kick feet out....yes, kind of wild, and we had to give the "don't kick your neighbor" warning, but it was fun), so we substituted a Horse.          

There are many variations to this approach.  You can do it just this way, without the Spanish words, and it works fine.  And if you're puppets don't exactly match the animals in the book, you can substitute freely, as we did, and still be true to the story.  You can also do it as a one-person story, which I've done many times in solo storytimes.  With that approach, I have to rely on the puppets and the words to show the kids what their actions should be, which goes okay, but it's even better when you have that second person to demonstrate the human way to move like those animals.  Oh, and I have to make sure I don't forget:   You can read the book, show the pictures, have the kids do the moves, and it's also excellent.

The Biggest Thing with Cardboard and Felt

Book:  The Biggest Thing in the Ocean  by Kevin Sherry
Puppets:   A few sea animals, including a shark
Props:   A big cut-out squid
Presenters:   2
Technology:  Projector with a ouple slides
Audience:   Family Storytime (mostly 3-6 year olds)

One of the many benefits of doing two-person storytimes is that you get to do stories that you never would have thought of yourself.  In this case, Sheila and Terri developed the story, Brad came up with a couple of additional enhancements later, and by the time I got a turn at a recent Family Storytime, all I had to do was walk around behind a piece of cardboard.

  I've used The Biggest Thing in the Ocean as a read aloud and it works great.  Sheila and Terri worked out a cool way to act it out with kids.  Sheila created a big giant squid, using cardboard and blue stuff which looks like felt, but is actually called something like headliner fabric or cartop.  "It was easy," she says, but I don't think it would have been for someone as craft-clueless as me.

 The squid works kind of like a giant puppet or mask.  You just hold it up in front of you and walk around, and you're a squid.  You can even have the words written on the back!  The story's pretty simple.  As Squid, I just brag about how I'm "the biggest thing in the ocean."  On the screen behind me we projected a silent video of moving ocean water, which was a nice touch....but it would work fine without that too.  Then Terri enters with a Starfish puppet.  I brag that I'm bigger than a starfish, and Terri attaches the puppet to the squid.  The puppets all have velcro and stick easily.  And this whole thing could be done with felt figures instead of puppets just as well..

So now there's a Starfish on the Squid.  I was a little worried that the kids would think the Squid ate the Starfish, but it's pretty clear that it's there just to show the comparative size.  Now that Terri has shown what to do, she guides four kids from the audience to come up, one at a time, and do the same thing with puppets they had been given.  So I say:  "I'm even bigger than a Blue Fish.  Is there a Blue Fish out there?"  And the child with the Blue Fish comes up and attaches it to the Squid.  Earlier we had tried having the kids walk across stage with their puppets in front of the Squid, but it was hard for them to figure out where to go.  Another time the kids stayed seated and held up their animals while the Squid came up to them.  That didn't work great either, since the kids usually forgot to hold up their animals and the rest of the audience couldn't see.  Then Brad had the idea of having the kids attach the sea creatures, and that did the trick.   Sometimes it just takes us a few tries before we get it right.  Soon the Squid has plenty of animals to prove how big he is:


Then he says something like:  "I'm even bigger than a Shark, although I'm glad I don't see any sharks around here.  They're smaller than me, but they're scary."  Terri, meanwhile, has a Shark puppet on her hand and we have a little hide-and-seek-followed-by-chase scene, which adds some action to the tale.


For the conclusion, the Squid brags one more time about being the biggest thing in the ocean...then the Whale appears.  We used the screen for the Whale, with the image moving slowly across the screen while the Squid retreats just in front of the jaws, then gets swallowed, as I move it out of sight behind a backdrop with the Squid.  So imagine the blue Squid in front of a screen, then the whale above slowly moving across the screen from right to left, towards the Squid, and as it reaches the edge of the screen, the Squid moves in front of the open mouth as if being swallowed.

Then the inside of the Whale's stomach appears on screen, and Squid comes out in front of the screen so it looks (kind of) like he's in the stomach, along with all of the other animals that are attached to him.  

He realizes where he is, admits that he's smaller than the Whale, and delivers the concluding line:  "I'm the biggest thing in this whale!"

The interaction between Squid and screen actually works very nicely, and the kids all seem to get the joke at the end, or at least as well as they do with the book....

I Elephant, 1 Piggie, 2 Birds, 3 People

Book:  There Is a Bird on Your Head  by Mo Willems
Puppets:   Two Birds
Props:   Nest, Egg, Baby Birds (3), Elephant Hat (or similar), Piggie Hat (or similar)
Presenters:  3
Audience:   K-2, Preschool

It's been nine(!) months since I posted on this blog, but I haven't really quit.  The usual suspects are to blame:  procrastination,
laziness, and their various relatives, but I choose to put the blame on computer Scrabble, which, as it happens, I purchased for $2.99 just a week or two after my last blog entry, and I'm afraid that's too close to be mere coincidence.  It's not like I'm addicted, and really I can quit any time I want, it's just that I choose not to.  So for now my plan is to get back to blog entries with an unambitious (but attainable) two times a month, and as for Scrabble....well I don't think anyone needs to know how many Scrabble games I play in a month.  

I'll jump back into it with yet another Elephant & Piggie.  We did There Is a Bird on Your Head for a K-2 Book Adventure program on "Award Winners" (it won the 2008 Geisel Medal) and the repeated it for Family Storytime.  We acted it out with me as Gerald and Sheila as Piggie (as usual, but one of these days we're going to switch roles, challenging stereotypes of gender and height, just for fun) and Terri with the Bird puppets.  

 Sheila and I sat, while Terri moved the first Bird onto my head.  She didn't talk for the birds, but gave little chirping whistles that were just right.  As usual with a Mo Willems, we stuck to the word from the book very closely.  When Gerald first learns there's a bird on his head, I jump off the chair and run away, while Terri takes the first Bird behind our backdrop.  Then I return and she comes back with two birds.




Then there's a progression as the birds go to work, while Gerald gets increasingly worried about what's going on up there.  They bring out a Nest.  Then an Egg.  Then Chicks.  In the book it's three eggs, and although we do have three plastic eggs, its too hard for a puppeteer to manage them along with two birds and a nest.  So Terri showed one egg, and Sheila stood up, looked into the Nest, and counted three.  We do have three baby birds.  Actually they're three finger puppets connected to that nest (it's a Folkmanis nest that they don't make any more but you can find it on ebay and elsewhere).  So Terri kind of pulled them up so the audience could see them peeking out.

As with most Elephant and Piggie's, you have to take your time with the dialogue and don't really need to overdo it.  The characters and pace is so strong that the kids totally get what's going on and why it's funny.   Piggie finally suggests that Gerald simply ask the birds to leave, then Sheila exits.  The birds do leave, as Terri follows her behind the backdrop.

 That sets up the finale, where Gerald calls Piggie back to thank her for the suggestion, and she re-enters with both birds on her head.  The visual effect of her showing up with the birds works well, but Terri had the good idea to add one more line.  In the book, Piggie closes the book with "you are welcome," and her perturbed look tells readers all they need to know.  Sheila's perturbed look is equally effective, but she also says:  "Gerald.....is there a bird on my head?" which circles back to the opening line and makes it clear that this is the end.  Okay, so we messed with Mo's words just a little bit, but the transition from page to act-out sometimes just needs a bit of that, even with a perfect book....

Three Wishes Acted Out

Story:  The Three Wishes  by Margot Zemach (also other versions)
Puppets:  Wizard/Elf
Props:   Axe, Tree, Sausage
Presenters:   Two
Techonology:  Sound effects - music, magic, spring, burp (optional)
Audience:  Family Storytime (mostly ages 3-6)

I did The Three Wishes once as a puppet show long ago, when I was just starting.  As I remember, I had technical difficulties with the sausage-on-the-nose-of-puppet, so I never tried it again.  I think by now I could work out those problems, but for a recent Preschool Stories and Science session, we did it as a two-person Act Out, and that was much easier.  Sheila and Terri developed the story, but when Sheila missed a day unexpectedly, I got to step in.

Like many folktales, sticking to the bare bones of the story works best with a mostly-preschool audience...and the bare bones are the best parts anyway.  Sheila found a nice accordion music clip to use in the beginning.  It has a nice folktalish feel.  As the Woodcutter, I grabbed my ax and narrated myself into the woods to chop down a tree.   Terri was behind our big tree (which we use for so many stories....if you want to make one big cutout prop to help with a lot of different acted out stories, definitely consider a tree).  As the Elf, she spoke from behind the tree a couple times just as I was about to chop.  Then the puppet popped up and explained that if the Woodcutter spared his home, he would grant three wishes.  Sheila added a nice magical entrance sound effect  to play when the Elf entered and exited.


As I walked away from the tree and back home, Terri walked inconspicuously from behind the tree to behind the home, kind of pretending to be sneaking when it was obvious that everyone could see her.  When you don't have trap doors and underground passages (maybe next year's budget?) for seamless transitions, it's fun to let the audience in on it and have them laugh along with you.

Once home, the Woodcutter is hungry, so I wished for a sausage.  From behind the screen, Terri tossed the sausage over the top.  It's just a construction paper creation, attached to a fishing line so she could control the landing onto the table.  Sheila had added a spring-y sound effect for the sausage's appearance.   Then Terri came out as the Wife, and we went through the back and forth argument about wasted wishes.   When she wishes it was stuck to my nose, we click on the sound effect again and up comes the sausage.  To attach the sausage to my nose, I just held it there:  technical difficulties solved.  Our argument continues as the Wife tries to pull the sausage off of the Woodcutter's nose, with some funny tug-of-war/back-and-forth movements, then she picks up that ax and nearly chops it off.

In the end, of course, they use the third wish to remove the sausage, and at least have a nice meal to show for it all.  We pretend to eat the sausage, the accordion music comes back, and we finish with a final sound effect of a loud burp.  That one is optional, but it did get some laughs.  

King Bidgood with Kids, Bubbles, and Sound Effects

Book:  King Bidgood's in the Bathtub  by Audrey Wood; Illustrated by Don Wood

Puppets:   None

Props:  Hats and Stuff for King, Queen, Princess, Jester, and Page;  Bath toys;  Something kind of like a Bath;  

Technology:  Sound effects:  Fanfare, Tub Filling, Tub Draining, "The Hustle" (or similarly infectious dance hit from the disco era).  

Presenters:   Two, plus four child volunteers

Audience:   Preschool Storytime  (mostly ages 3-6)

I post infrequently during summer because I don't typically do many new stories, but I got a chance to try one recently.  Our summer Storytime is actually "Preschool Stories & Science," where we do just one story, plus a science demonstration and hands-on craft and science tables.  This is usually done by Sheila and Terri, but Shannon and I filled in for them this week.  We don't choose stories based on their science content, but it's nice when they have something in common with the activities.  This week the kids did bubbles and magic sand, so:  a bathtub story!

King Bidgood has always been a favorite of mine, but the pictures aren't meant to carry to a storytime audience.  So we decided to act it out with some child volunteers and a few sound effects from FreeSound.com.  For a tub, we just found some strips of styrofoam we had around for some reason, clipped them together, and put a sign on it.  It was the right height for kids to look over and easy to move in and out of, since it was three-sided with an open back.

We did change the characters around a bit to match our props and preferences.  Shannon was in the tub, so it became "Queen" Bidgood.  We kept the Knight from the book, but the Queen who lunches became a King (two Queens wouldn't make sense), the Duke who fishes became a Jester (we have a Jester hat; we don't know what a Duke hat looks like), and the Duchess became a Princess (see Duke-to-Jester explanation).  As the Page, I called up the four child volunteers and gave them each a hat and a thing to carry while Shannon as Queen B was behind the backdrop gathering her bath stuff.

We had our sound effects loaded onto a PowerPoint file, so a click played a short "Fanfare" to announce the Queen's entrance.  Shannon showed the kids her bath toys, sang a bit of "Rubber Duckie," and got into the bath.  Another click played a "Tub Filling With Water" sound effect, while Shannon flipped on a bubble machine.  This looked and sounded good enough that several kids stood up to peek into the tub to see the water.  Nothing like an audience with a rich imagination.

Then we got into the story.  We adjusted the words a bit to make it all dialogue.  So "Help, help, said the Page when the sun came up" becomes "Help, help, it's morning and the sun's come up..."  I asked the audience to join in with the "Queen Bidgood's in the bathtub and she won't get out!" refrain.  Then when I say "Who knows what to do?" we click the Fanfare music again and the Knight/child gets to say his only line:  "I do!"  Then I fill in the rest, adapting from the book again:  "...said the Knight when the sun came up" becomes "It's the Knight! And the sun's come up."  And the I say the next line too, to the Queen:  "Get out!  It's time to battle."  That line is said by the Knight in the book, but having the storyteller as Page do more lines and guide the action works well.  The kids just have to hit their "I do!" line (and about 3 out of 4 usually do) and look cute.  The rhythm of the text is really important to the story, so we tried to hold true to that.

The knight goes into the tub, setting up Shannon's line as Queen Bidgood:  "Come in, come in, with a boom, boom, boom.  (rather than "'Come in,' said the King...")   Today, we battle:  in the Tub!"   Then Shannon pulls out two fish shaped squirt guns and she and the Knight squirt each other, and the audience.

After that, the pattern repeats.  We used the same Fanfare sound effect to announce each new person, and that worked well to solidify the pattern.  King comes in with a loaf of bread and Queen Bidgood shows corn and grapes (or whatever food props we had in there).  Jester brings a net and Queen Bidgood has one two, plus fish puppets she's caught in them.  When we planned this I pictured all the kids in the increasingly crowded tub joining in each activity, but that was just a little too much for them to manage, and it was fine to just have the new tub arrival do the actions.  With the Princess, it's "Dance in the tub!" and our sound effect is a clip from "The Hustle" by Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony  (summer of '75....seems like only yesterday).

For the ending, in which the Page pulls the plug, we added one more sound effect:  Tub Draining, and Shannon led all of the kids out of the tub.  Although it's a perfect ending on the page, we seemed to need something a little more definitive to close it out.  So we tried:  And that's the story of Queen Bidgood's in the Bathtub....she finally got out!"

We didn't quite get the whole story, but here's a rough excerpt video of Queen B:  

We Are in a Book on a Screen

Book:  We Are in a Book!  by Mo Willems
Puppets:  None
Props:  Elephant hat, Piggie ears (or similar)
Technology:   Scanned word bubbles and projector
Presenters:  Two
Audience:   K-2

We've done plenty of Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie stories at our library, both as two-person act-outs and as one-person puppet stories (including I Am Going, I Broke My Trunk, I'm a Frog, Let's Go for a Drive, and Watch Me Throw the Ball).  But I always just dismissed my favorite E & P book, We Are in a Book, as not suitable for Storytime.  Then I learned that Rick Samuelson of Washington County Cooperative Library System (Rick can be seen in WCCLS's excellent Fingerplay Fun Youtube pages) had adapted it as a stage puppet show (neatly re-titled as "We Are in a Puppet Show").  I never got to see Rick's show, but it got me thinking again about the book, and finally Sheila and I got a chance to do it for one of our K-2 Book Adventure programs.

Using PowerPoint and our Projector and Screen was the key.  We made a series of slides to replicate the book.  Each slide has a frame, with a page number down on the bottom right.  And clicks make the word bubbles appear.  So all we had to do was read from the word bubbles.  Which actually isn't that easy, because they're behind you, but a quick glance was all we needed.  (Sure, memorizing would have been even better, but sometimes there's just not time for that).  

When the book begins, E and P are just on the page, not realizing they are in a book:

Then Gerald looks out at the audience and tells Piggie that they are being watched.  We had some fun with that, stepping away from the screen and towards the audience, then back against the screen, trying to match the great scene in the book where Piggie looks out at the readers:

Then we realize we're in a book:

After that, the two have fun by getting the readers to say "banana."  This was the one part I wasn't sure would work.  I wondered if the kids would read all of the word bubbles out loud, so that when "banana" appeared on the screen the joke wouldn't work so well.  But it was fine.  A couple kids were reading aloud most of the way, but when Sheila/Piggie introduced the plan and said "Here I go...," and the word "BANANA" appeared in a word bubble, everyone said it.  As Gerald says:  "so funny!"

Then things take a different meta-turn when Piggie realizes the book will end.  In the book, Piggie appears to peel back the bottom right-hand pages to find out what the last page number is.  That worked fine in our version:  Sheila peeked behind the bottom corner of the screen, where the page numbers would be if it were a book.  

Then Gerald starts fretting about the book ending too fast as each page turns:  

And here's how the real corresponding page looks:

It all finally ends with Piggie's fine idea of having Gerald ask the kids to "read us again."  Which fit neatly into our program, since with our K-2 Book Adventure events we always have multiple copies of the books we feature, and the kids really did go check those out.  And read them, we hope.

The only problem with this way of doing the story is that we couldn't use it when we went out to schools to promote the event, as we do each month.  We really needed the word bubbles and mock-page for this one.   No problem, though:  we just substituted another E & P: I'm a Frog, and you don't need anything for that (though pig ears and elephant hat do help).

As for We Are in a Book, in the Slate Book Review, David Plotz says that this book "is arguably the most disturbing book published in America since The Road."  Sheila and I talked about it, though, and we decided that it's challenging enough to adapt Mo Willems....we'll pass on Cormac McCarthy for now.