Foolish Frog with Puppets

Story:  "The Foolish Frog" by Pete Seeger
Puppets:  Frog, Man, Woman, Child, Cow, Chicken (can cut one or two)
Props:   Grass, Water Bottle, Barn (optional)
Presenters:    One
Audience:   Family Storytime, also good for K-2

When I started as a children's librarian a few decades ago the world of storytelling seemed totally new to me.  Later I realized it wasn't, because I grew up listening to Pete Seeger records, and although I liked his songs, it was the stories that really captured me:  "Abiyoyo"..."Sam the Whaler"...and this one, "The Foolish Frog."  It's kind of daunting to tell a story that you grew up with, especially when it's told by such a great teller (who also has a banjo).  But fortunately the best stories work with all levels of tellers.  And although I have no banjo, and don't sing well, I do have some puppets, and that's the way I first started telling this story in storytime.

It starts with a farmer watching a Bullfrog jumping across a creek.  I narrate and act as the farmer, with the Bullfrog puppet on my hand.  The Farmer makes up a song about it:   "Way down south in the Yankety-Yank / A bullfrog jumped from bank to bank / Just because he'd nothin' better 'fore to do..."  You can get the tune from Pete Seeger's version.  I'm no singer, but this is simple, silly, and has a strong rhythm, so anyone can sing it just fine.

The Farmer sings it to the folks at the corner store, and that starts the pattern.  When I sing the song the second time, I usually ask the audience to join in, which sets up the silly sing-alongs that come later.  Since all the men are at the store singing (and drinking Coca Cola (I think the book switched it to "strawberry pop") and eating soda crackers), the wives come to look for them (gender stereotyping I know, but it works fine in this story).  That's when I get the Woman puppet.  She sings the same song.  Then it's the kids who come down to the store (and I use one Child puppet).  It's fine to skip Woman or Child to save time, which I typically do because it can be a longish story...but if I do have the time I use them all.

Next it's the Cows.  Like Mr. Seeger does in his telling, it's fun to have each newcomer wonder aloud to the audience where everyone is, to give each a bit of personality and silliness, and also build the anticipation.  When the Cows sing along, though, they say "Moo-moo, moo-moo, moo-moo-moo..." to the same tune.   This is a fun moment, when the audience realizes this is a much-silllier-than-usuial participation story.

Next come Chickens, though I sometimes also skip them to shorten the tale.  Then there's another clever shift, from the mild silliness of animals singing, to the really crazy silliness of other stuff, like the Grass wondering where everyone went and swishing its way down to the corner store too. For Grass, I don't use a puppet, just hold up a handful of Easter grass and move it around like a puppet.  The song there is "Swish-swish, swish-swish, swish-swish-swish...."  Barn is pretty fun too:  I sometimes skip it, but when I've had a toy barn of about the right size, I pull that out and we all "squeak" the song like a barn door.  For the River, I use a half-full water bottle and shake it around while everyone sings in bubbly voices.

The final twist brings us back to the Bullfrog, who wonders where the creek he was jumping across went.  He hears everyone singing about him, "puffs himself up with pride," and puffs himself so big that he explodes.  I've thought about trying to actually make the Frog bigger as he puffs himself, but I think of this as really more of storyteller's version than a puppeteer's, so don't feel the need to visually represent everything.  When he explodes, I grab as many of the puppets and props as I can and toss them up in the air.  And Pete Seeger has a great ending for the tale:  Nobody can find the Frog, so "all that's left of the Frog is the song...and we might as well sing 'er one more time."  Which gives the audience one last go-round, this time with the words restored.

We've also done this at my library as a two-person puppet show, with one person playing guitar, singing, and telling, and the other person behind the puppet stage managing puppets and props.  It's excellent, and even includes an inflating balloon for the "puffing up" at the end!  But I haven't been a part of that version yet, so will wait to write more about it in a future post, because I definitely want to try that way.  But the one-person with a few puppets version is also quite fun and works great too (as long as you avoid comparing your version to Pete Seeger's)

The book version of The Foolish Frog is long out-of-print (and runs for $100+ if you've got a new copy), but I always think of it as a record rather than a book.  The version I grew up with was this one from Children's Concert at Town Hall.  What a great album!  It also included "Abiyoyo," "Here's to Cheshire, Here's to Cheese" (a version of "Froggy Went a Courtin'), "Henry My Son" (aka "Mother Be Quick, I'm Gonna Be Sick, and Lay Me Down to Die" (Henry ate some green and yeller eels that turned out to be snakes), and a bunch of other great ones....

Santa Cat with Signs

Book:  Here Comes Santa Cat  by Deborah Underwood;  Illustrated by Claudia Rueda
Puppets:  2 Cats, Bird, Frog (or substitute)
Props:  Signs (copied from book); Santa Clothes for Cat (just a hat would do); Two Cat Food Cans (or similar); Christmas Lights;  Puppet Stage (optional)
Presenters:   Two
Audience:  Family Storytime  (could be done with one)

We needed a new holiday story to go with our annual puppet show presentation of The Nutcracker, so Brad and I decided to try Here Comes Santa Cat.  In the book, the "narrator" is talking directly to Santa Cat, who responds by holding up signs.  Very clever and fun!  We considered using the projector to show scanned images, but decided the act of Cat physically holding up the signs was really the heart of the book.  So we scanned some pictures, laminated them, and taped them to paint sticks.

For Santa Cat, we just squeezed a puppet cat into a little Santa coat and hat.  Probably just having a hat could work, but the coat did help with this particular puppet.

From in front of the stage, Brad interacted with Santa Cat.  When he asked a question, like "Why won't Santa bring you any presents?" Santa Cat disappeared below, then popped up holding a sign.

The sign is a pie chart comparing "naughty" to "nice," which is pretty funny, but most preschool age kids won't get it just from the visual, so Brad's reaction helped to explain it:  "Oh, you were mostly naughty this year [point to blue part], and only a little bit nice [point to pink part]."  That's the pattern we followed for the most part, but we also mixed it up with some other props besides the signs.  

Santa Cat was silent for the whole thing, except for a couple of bursts of singing, as when he decides to sing Christmas carols and meowl's horribly to the tune of "Jingle Bells."


We also did some substituting.  In the book, Santa Cat is asked how he'll travel like Santa without reindeer, and S. C. tries a rocket.  Lacking a convenient rocket prop, we switched it to a Bullfrog, and the visual of frog and cat slowly hopping across the stage was pretty funny.  Then when Brad reminded Santa Cat that he had to fly. we had a puppet Bird grab S. C., fly above the stage, and drop him.

In another scene from the book, Santa Cat tries going down the chimney....we just skipped that one for brevity and because we couldn't think of a simple way to replicate it.

With the Christmas Tree joke, we used sign and prop.  When asked what else he can do that's nice,
Santa Cat brings up the Christmas Tree sign.  Then disappears below stage, makes crashing noises, shakes the stage, meowling to the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree," and reappears tangled in Christmas lights.

The book's ending is very satisfying, and worked well with puppets.  The narrator decides that Santa Cat has been trying to be nice, so gives him a present.  We used two cans of cat food.  Then a Kitten appears.  There's a little back-and-forth as Kitten shows interest in the cans and Santa Cat fends her off, until finally Santa Cat pushes one of the cans over to Kitten in the true spirit of the holiday.

Overall the story worked well, with the combination of puppets, props, signs, and interaction with Narrator.  The one change we'll make for next year is to make the signs more visible....it was a bit hard for people in the back to make them out very well.  We printed them kind of in a hurry, and next time Here Comes Valentine Cat....
we'll play around with contrast.  And if needed, bold up the main lines with a sharpie.  But that's twelve months away.  Meanwhile, we've got two months to figure out another cool book:

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...

Fox's Sack with Puppets

Book:  What's in Fox's Sack?  by Paul Galdone
Puppets:  Fox, Bee, Rooster, Pig, Child, Dog; 4 people optional
Props:  Sack (pillow slip works fine)
Presenters:  One
Audience:  Family Storytime (older too)
Video:  How to Tell What's in Fox's Sack? with Puppets

Here's one of the first stories I ever told with puppets.   It has a repetitive pattern that's easy to learn (and for the audience to follow), and that pattern builds and twists a bit at the end to make a very satisfying story.  When I tell it with puppets I like to it as narrator, as well as doing the puppet characters.  So I'll describe Fox catching a bee, then show him doing that.  I tell how he "walked and walked and came to a house...."  And later it's  "off he went, trot, trot, trot, to Squintum's house."  I think it's because I first presented as a book and an oral tale, and I just really like Galdone's language.

Fox proceeds to meet four different ladies, and asks each one not to look in his sack while he goes to visit his friend Squintum.  I usually don't use puppets at all for the ladies, I just kind of play them myself, interacting with Fox in character, promising not to look, then opening the sack after all.  I've done it with four people puppets (I don't have four ladies, so two ladies, two men), but I don't feel it adds that much, and any time I can simplify the prop and puppet handling I usually do.

The strong pattern of the story invites some good interaction with the audience.  They'll often join in when Fox says "Don't look in my sack!"  And you can play up their involvement as the Lady by asking them:  "....should I look in his sack?"  (response is typically split evenly between "yes" and "no.").

The heart of the story is the narrative and dialogue, rather than action, but there are moments where puppet movement can really help:    When each Lady pulls the animal out of the sack  when Fox returns and kind of gets in the Lady's face when he says "Oh ho!  So you did look in my sack!;"  And short simple chases when one animal chases the previous one away.

It's always fun to watch the audience's reactions shift towards the end.  They've kind of settled into the easy pattern of Fox getting a new animal in his sack each time, but when they realize it's a Child who will be in there, they're not quite so relaxed.  And that brief bit of tension drops once they realize that the last Lady is putting her Dog into the sack to fool Fox.

You can see a video sample of this story on my Youtube Storytelling with Puppets page.  It's a tale that also works great with a puppet stage.  When I do it that way, I drop the narration part, so Fox and the Ladies describe what they're doing as the story proceeds.  With a stage, you can have some fun with the interactions between the animals, extending the chase scenes, having Rooster hide from Pig a few times, for example.

The excellent Paul Galdone version of this tale is out of print and goes for $140+ new on amazon, but Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has brought several of P. G.'s folktales back into print in the past few years and I keep hoping they'll add this one.  And The Monkey and the Crocodile....and The Magic Porridge Pot....okay, let's just say:  all Paul Galdone folktales should be back in print...in hardcover.

A Pirate Puppet Swallows Stuff

Book:  There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Fish  by Jennifer Ward, Illustrated by Steve Gray
Puppets:  Pirate
Props:  Fish, Parrot, Map, Sail, Boat, Mast, Bubbles  (or substitutes)
Audience:  Family Storytime (mostly ages 3-6)
Presenters:  two

For a pirate-themed Family Storytime Sheila and I decided to do this reworking of "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" using puppets, props, and a puppet stage.  Sheila was in front of the stage managing props and leading the song.  I was behind with a pirate puppet.  

We adapted the book a bit, reducing the number of items that the Pirate swallows and playing around with the rhymes a bit.  We started out with all of the props velcroed to the side of the stage, which worked well:  they were handy for Sheila to grab, plus it led the audience to anticipate what would be next.  We sort of traded off with the telling/singing of the story.  I would start off with  "I am an old pirate, I swallowed a.....Fish!"  Then Sheila takes the Fish, holds it above the pirate puppet, and slowly lowers it into the puppet's mouth.  The pirate turns to face away from the audience so that it kind of looks like he's really swallowing it.

Sheila then leads the audience through the cumulative part:   "He swallowed the Sail right after the Parrot / He swallowed the Parrot right after the Fish...."   As the Pirate I joined in each time it got to the refrain of  "Arrgh and blimey, that Fish was Slimy!" and then again with the final line of "Yo ho ho, Watch his belly grow!"

We didn't worry too much about having perfectly matched props.  The Map was a rolled up drawn paper map;  the Sail was fabric that Sheila decorated.  The Mast was a fun one, because it was so long.  In the book, the Boat is an actual pirate ship, but our simple plastic toy boat worked fine.  As Sheila put the props down the Pirate's throat (or pretended too) I would catch them with my off hand so they wouldn't crash to the ground.  Or at least I mostly did:  I missed the boat once and it was pretty loud.  

At the end of the story, the Pirate sinks to the bottom of the sea.  So I sang that verse and slowly brought the Pirate out of sight and turned on the bubble machine from behind the stage.  It always seems to be tricky to get the timing of a bubble machine just right.  Sometimes they start up right away, sometimes it takes a bit.  But for the most part this effect worked well and the kids got the idea.  We also had a bubble sound effect that started with the click of a PowerPoint slide.  Well, two out of four times it started...not sure why it didn't work the other times.

It's nice to add effects like that, but also good to not make them crucial to the success of the story.  We can live with the bubbles being a bit late, but the Pirate puppet, the props, and the telling are what really make it work, and we were four for four with getting those mostly right.

We originally thought of doing this as an act-out, with one of us as the pirate stuffing the props into an over-sized shirt, but in the end I think the puppet stage version worked more neatly than the people version would have.

The Chocolate Chip Ghost (and other colors)

Story:  The Chocolate Chip Ghost  by Meighan Piefer & Phyllis French

Props:   Felt Ghosts + Felt Board; colored food props or pictures (optional)

Presenters:   one

Audience:   Toddler, Preschool

I keep trying to get back to this blog, and my motivation this time is to get in a good Halloween story before the holiday happens.  This a favorite among pre-school teachers and librarians, but not everyone knows it.  I've pretty sure that I've  never actually seen the book:  I learned it as a felt board story from someone years ago.  I don't do many stories with felt, mostly because I'm so completely unskilled at scissors, patterns, and just general crafty creativity.  But these shapes are even simple enough for me.  You just cut out five small ghosts and one big one.  I made the big one into a simple flat puppet, but it works fine as just a felt shape.


 Then you tell the story, which is basically this:

Mother Ghost goes to the store to get some food.  She tells her five little ghosts not to have anything but milk when she's gone.  One by one, each ghost goes to the fridge and gets something that's not milk, but something with a distinct color.  Ghost one gets a tomato.  [pick her up and bring her behind the felt board; show the tomato].  And when she came back, she was......red!  [switch white ghost for red ghost and put that one back on the board].

Then then next three ghosts do the same thing, with different colors and different fruits or vegetables.  Play food or real food both work fine.

That simple anticipation and guessing game, where the kids guess what the ghost will eat and what color she'll turn to, along with the satisfying visual image of that brightly colored ghost, works just great.  Similar in effect to doing Pete the Cat: I Love My Red Shoes with colored shoes.  

Then there's a neat twist at the end, when the last little ghost finds the refrigerator empty, so she looks in the freezer.  I usually let the kids know that she found some ice cream, ask them to guess what flavor, then show the decorated ghost and they all get that it was chocolate chip ice cream. 

For the food props, you can use real food, toy food, or if you don't have either, just print out a picture. Actually pictures might work even better because you can stick them to the board, though I've never tried it that way.

The humor and surprises in this story are right on target for two and three year olds, but it's also engaging enough for ones and surprisingly fascinating to four and five year olds as well.  And for toddlers it's has just the right level of Halloweenishness, with the least scary ghosts ever.   

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.

Jumanji Puppet Show

Book:  Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
Puppets:  Boy, Girl, Monkey(s), Lion(s), Snake(s), Shark(s)
Props:  Squirt Bottle, Storm Sounds (optional), Fog Machine (optional), Dice, Game Board (printed and taped to cardboard)

Jumanji is such an excellent book that I hesitated a bit before doing it as a puppet show, knowing I'd have to change it a bunch.  But I justify it to myself by saying it's way closer than the movie version, and by using the usual standby:  kids will check out a bunch of copies of the book.  So we did the puppet show for our "K-2 Book Adventure" program on "Award Winners."  (a separate post will summarize the program).  When I did this show years ago it was a solo show, but we had three people this time (Sheila, Terri, and I) and it was much easier.  I played Judy and Peter, the two kids.  Terri and Sheila were on either side of me and each had one of each animal puppet.

The first change from the book was to jump right into the two kids playing the game.  No trip to the park and finding the game.  So they're bored at home, discover the game, read the rules, and we're off.  As a puppet show, it's the appearance of the animals and other dangers that are the key.  So when one child rolls the die and reads "Lions attack, go back two spaces," Sheila's Lion appears behind Peter on the right, he turns and a chase ensues.  They lose that Lion, head back the other way, and Terri's Lion appears on the left, and a chase ensues.  And that's the basic pattern.

 The next roll leads to "Monkeys pull hair."  I know, in the book it's "monkeys steal food," but that was too complicated.  And having a Monkey pull a girl puppet across the stage by the hair is a pretty funny visual.  When it's "Monsoon season," Terri and Sheila made storm noises with our thunder tube and squirted the audience with water.  Then we did "Python," which was more chasing.  And finished with "lost in fog," which was added because we got to use our fog machine.  Terri held it up right below the puppets and it was a quite effective surprise for the audience.  We did not include the rhinoceros stampede or the lost guide, partly because it had to be a fairly quick show and partly because they would have been harder to manage (once again artistic integrity is trumped by time and convenience)...

When Judy finally reaches the end, we stretched out the action by having her forget to shout "Jumanji."  So the game isn't ended and all the animals (or as many as Terri and Sheila could put out there) converge on the kids until she remembers.  And when she says it, all the animal puppets instantly disappear.  

Since the kids never go to the park in this version, we had to drop the excellent book ending where they return the game to the park and watch two other kids walk off with it (we learn about their game in Zathura).  So we added a basic joke to end it up:  The kids decide to play a safe, harmless game like "Go Fish," and when one of them says "what could possibly be scary about "Go Fish?"....two Shark puppets appear and chase them.

The show was a big hit with the K-2 audience, proving once again that there's nothing like a chase or two to make a puppet show work.  It's one that could be done pretty easily with two people...you'd just have to have animal puppets coming from one side only.  And you just need a bit of pre-choreographing of the chase scenes to make it work, then there's plenty of room for improvising if you feel like it.  The fog machine is not really needed (though we enjoyed using it).  As for the Game Board, we just printed an image of the actual board game which came out when the movie did and taped it to cardboard.  Actually a very good board game....my own kids played it for hours at a time when they were younger.

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....