Mouse's Other Mothers

Book: Mother, Mother, I Want Another by Maria Polushkin Robbins, Illustrated by Jon Goodell (1978 version illustrated by Diane Dawson)

Puppets: 2 mice, plus 3-5 other animal puppets

Props: blanket or pillow for Baby Mouse (optional)
Presenters: one
Audience: Toddlers and Preschoolers
Video:  How to Tell Mother, Mother, I Want Another with Puppets

This gentle, funny story is a good one to adapt with puppets. You can play up the gentleness for younger audiences, like in Toddler Time, and get sillier with older, preschool age groups. When Baby Mouse says “Mother, mother, I want another,” his mom thinks he means another mother, when he really wants another kiss. This sets up the main action of the story: a series of other animals come and try to be “another mother” for Baby Mouse. Each one sings a silly little song, but Baby Mouse always ends up repeating the title refrain.

The songs are four lines that I just sing to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Mrs. Duck sings “Quack, quack, mousie, / Don’t you fret, / I’ll bring you worms / Both fat and wet.” I tend to silly the songs up a bit: “Quack, quack, mousie, / Don’t wiggle and squirm, / Tomorrow you can eat / A bunch of worms.” You can use just about any puppets for the other mothers and make up rhymes pretty easily. Like for Mrs. Skunk: “Hush little mousie / All is well / Think of the nice things / There are to smell.” (turning her tail to him at the last line).

You can have some fun with the voices of the mother puppets, but no need to be too extreme with them....just a little croak to your voice with Mrs. Frog, a deeper voice for Mrs. Cow, that sort of thing. What they're doing is more important than how they sound in this case, so putting a lot of energy into unique voices is more distracting than helpful for this story.

When Baby Mouse finally explains what he really wants, each other mother returns to give him a kiss. Baby Mouse’s reaction to each kiss is happy in the book, and that’s how I do it with toddlers. But for preschoolers, I usually have him react to the kiss more rudely: “Ick! I’ve been kissed by a frog!”…that sort of thing. The way Baby Mouse says the “Mother, mother, I want another” refrain can also vary by audience. With preschoolers, he can get more impatient with each one (shown by voice and by more motion, as inmoving towards the mothers while they move back), while with younger kids his response is more mild and consistent.

Finally Mrs. Mouse returns to give him the kiss he really wanted. And because the songs are such a part of the puppet story, I add one for Mrs. Mouse to end it: “I am your mom / And you don’t need another / You just wanted one more / Kiss from your mother.”

There’s a bit of puppet management to this one, since each mother tells the next one about Baby Mouse’s problem, then the new mother goes to see Baby Mouse. So I have the mother puppets split up on either side of me. And before each switch, Baby Mouse comes off the hand on rests on my lap. So Mrs. Mouse (right hand) leaves Baby Mouse (left hand, then lap). Mrs. Mouse meets Mrs. Duck (left hand). Mrs. Duck comes to Baby Mouse (right hand now). Mrs. Duck leaves, meets Mrs. Frog (right hand)…etc. Then you also have to return each mother to alternate sides when you take them off, so they’re easy to pick up when they return (in reverse order) for the kisses. Writte out, it looks way more complicated than it really is, but it is worth walking through with the puppets a time or two before telling.

Lizard, Bear, and Funny Songs

Book: Lizard's Song by George Shannon, Illustrated by Jose Aruego & Ariane Dewey

Puppets: Lizard, Bear, Duck, Rabbit (or any two substitutes for duck & rabbit)
Props: Rock (optional)
Presenters: One
Audience: Preschool, School-Age
Video:  How to Tell with Puppets

I visited a summer daycamp last week that was studying “rocks” and wanted a puppet story or two. I don’t actually own any puppet rocks, but realized that two of my favorites each feature a rock, so they worked fine for the tie-in: Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock which I'll feature soon,and George Shannon’s Lizard’s Song which I'll do now: In this book, Lizard sings a song when he’s happy: “Zoli, zoli, zoli – zoli zoli zoli / Rock is my home – rock is my home…” Musical notation is in the back of the book, but since that means nothing to me I just make up my own little tune/chant...and it's pretty catchy. Lizard teaches the song to Bear, but Bear meets other animals and forgets it each time.

I add a couple of things for my puppet version. I give each of the animals Bear meets their own song, patterned after Lizard’s. So Duck sings “Quacky quacky quacky – quacky quacky quacky / Pond is my home – pond is my home…” And instead of having Bear just forget Lizard’s song, like he does in the book, I have him try to sing it, but get it mixed up with the song he just heard: “Zoli, zoli, quacky – quacky quacky zoli / Rock is my pond – pond is my rock.” This is pretty funny. And even funnier if Bear reacts after each mistake: “Zoli zoli quacky [Oh no!] – quacky quacky zoli [That’s not right] / Rock is my pond [son of a *#@&!].…” and so on (but just kidding about the swear words). My Bear puppet has arms you can move, so I’ll have him scratch his ear at the first mistake, cover his face with the second, and slap his head with the third. Those visual reactions are even funnier than the verbal piece.

In the very pleasing conclusion, Lizard teaches Bear his own song, so he won’t ever forget it: “Zoli zoli zoli…/ Den is my home.” I make one more change there, adding a different sound for Bear’s song instead of “zoli,” to extend the pattern from the other animals’ songs. So it's: “Rumble, rumble, rumble – rumble rumble rumble / den is my home, den is my home….”

Besides the songs and the humor, the characters have distinct personalities, so you can have fun with voices and the interactions between Lizard (happy and kind) and Bear (a bit pushy, kind of dopey, but nice in the end). As for the other animals, any will do….just use the sound they make and the place they live for the song.

For puppet-handling, when Bear leaves Lizard I take Lizard off and put him on a rock on a table, so then I can handle Bear and whoever he meets. I end up switching Bear from right hand to left hand a few times. He’s on my right hand when he meets Lizard. When he leaves Lizard to return to his den, I switch him to my left hand, heading right. He meets an animal, mixes up the song, and then heads back to Lizard, so I switch him to my right hand, moving left. It may sound like a lot of trouble, but it’s pretty intuitive and I think it makes the story flow smoother. Also, when Lizard first sings the song he does a simple little dance…moving up or down or side to side. So when the others sing, they should dance a bit too. So this isn't the simplest of stories to tell with puppets, but with a few run throughs to get the switches and actions worked out, it works really well.

The Scary/Silly Gunniwolf

Book: The Gunniwolf by Wilhelmina Harper, Illustrated by Barbara Upton (2002) or William Wiesner (1967 version)

Puppets: none

Props: Wolf hat or similar; Little Girl stuff; Flowers (at least 3); Forest backdrop big enough to hide behind; Blanket; Pillow; Teddy Bear
Presenters: Two
Audience: Family Storytime (mostly 3-6 years)
Link to Youtube video demo

The Gunniwolf is one of those perfect-for-puppets stories, with chases, hide-and-peeks, distinct characters, funny sounds, and a song. So I’ve done it as a puppet story many times, with and without a stage. For our Family Storytime, though, Sheila and I decided to act it out. We tried to retain most of the best puppet-ish bits in some form without adding too much elaborate in terms of costumes or props. As Little Girl, Sheila put on a grass skirt and a flower head band and searched for flowers. I wore a wolf-hat created by Sheila that was a bit scary (teeth!) but not too much. Just to make sure I wasn’t too frightening for our young crowd, I put the hat on when we introduced the, so they wouldn’t be too surprised.

I love the way the scariness works in this tale. You can make it pretty scary if you want to, but you can manage that by adjusting the goofiness of the Gunniwolf. No matter how silly he is, though, there’s always some tension and the kids get really involved in warning the girl.

The simple tri-fold that we use for most of our stories served as the forest, especially after we put our cut-out tree in front of it (another piece we use in a lot of stories). As the Gunniwolf, I peeked out a few times and the kids warned Little Girl (who didn’t listen of course), building up some suspense. That leads to: the Pop-Out, when Little Girl finally sees the Gunniwolf. This is exciting, since the kids knew it was coming but weren’t sure when, and because they’re not totally sure what will happen next. And it’s fun, because the Gunniwolf sounds kind of silly and Little Girl is scared, but in a funny way.

For the song, we included an extra gag that I do with the puppets: Gunniwolf tells Little Girl to sing, and she sings the wrong song each time: “Twinkle Twinkle,” “Jingle Bells,” etc., before finally singing the write way (“Kum-kwa, Khi-wa…”). Another added joke: each time Gunniwolf falls asleep to the song, he first dips behind the backdrop to get something: first a blankie, then a pillow, then a teddy bear. So a bit more silliness, leading into the chase, which brings back the suspense. We didn’t run around that much with the chases, but used the great refrain from the story (“Pit pat pit pat” goes Little Girl…”Hunker-cha, hunker-cha” goes Gunniwolf) to carry the drama. Just like with puppets, slowing down a chase scene usually works best, so we “run” almost in slow motion. It’s not the speed, it’s the anticipation that creates the suspense.

For the final chase, Little Girl makes it home and Gunniwolf is consoled by the fact that he now has learned the song and sings it himself in his very bad singing voice (at last, a singing performance that fits my musical talent level). And Little Girl says she’ll obey Mother from now on…probably.

One World, Many Stories, Five People, Five Suitcases, Twenty Times

Story:  Summer Reading Program Promotional Skit
Puppets:  Snake, Alligators
Props:  Suitcases, Inflatable Sharks, Plunger, Toilet Brush, Elmo...really just too many to mention.
Presenters:  Five
Audience:  School-Age (K-5)

Like many Children’s Departments, we spent a ton of time and energy in June vising schools to promote our Summer Reading Program this time of year. Our method is to develop a 15-20 minute skit that plays on the theme, entertains grades K-5, and includes the most important bits about our Summer Program. All five of us Youth Services staff (Brad, Shannon, Sheila, Terri, and myself) took part
in the planning and presentation. You can view the video of it here.   We wound up performing it 20 times (4 family storytimes and 16 at primary schools) for about 1,700 people, and I’m fascinated by the many steps and stages we went through from the first moment of planning until the last performance.  Here are 12 steps along the way:

1: Come up with a general concept: We all have suitcases, we travel around the world, our suitcases get mixed up, funny things happen.

2: Walk through it and flesh it out: We each go somewhere (Rain Forest, for one example), we run into trouble (Snake puppet), we reach into our suitcase to get something to save us (like a net for Snake), but instead we find someone else’s thing (snowballs that were meant to be used in Antarctica).

3: Write a rough script with that pattern and filling in the pieces.

4: Walk through it again and punch it up. Around this point we came up with two key elements. One of us (Brad) has to stay behind and take care of things (specifically: clean toilets, since showing a picture of a toilet works equally well with grades K-5), so he is the trickster who switches our suitcases. Also, he’ll play a final trick on all of us: Pop out of his own suitcase and squirt us all and the audience with silly string.

5: Write up an updated version, knowing by now that it’s going to be changed a bunch still, but some of us (me for one) just need those written down words.

6: Walk through it again, this time with props and our backdrop (a big trifold structure with a world map). At this point it still needs work, but since Family Storytime start in ten minutes, it’s on to step 7…

7: Perform a rough version for our last Family Storytimes of the spring. We use our four performances to work out the kinks, get some new ideas, and learn our parts. It’s a little tricky, since we develop it for K-5, not 3-5 years, but as Terri puts it: "The parents get the information, and the kids just like to watch us doing stuff." Meanwhile, we add more touches. For example, reaching a snake over the edge to hiss at Sheila is okay, but throwing it over, then pulling it back by the tip of the tail, is better.

8: Perform for real for all 36 classes in 9 sessions at one primary school (in one day). Kind of grueling, but great fun, especially because they seem to enjoy it and retain the information pretty well. And Brad popping out of the suitcase surprises them every time. We cut holes in an old suitcase and an old card table, he secretly climbs underneath, and when we open the suitcase with plans to play a trick on him, he gets us good.

9: Make minor changes during the 5 minutes between each performance. We slice and shorten for the first few, since we run long and have little or no time for questions…the cuts are all good ones, though, and we stay on time most of the rest of the way. We add more touches: For example: Brad (toilet cleaner, remember) walks out with a little plunger and finds new ways to use the prop each time (as a megaphone, balanced on his head, as something to drink from…)

10: Perform another 7 times at our other elementary school over the next two days. By now we’ve got it pretty well down. One presentation got filmed by our local cable company, and we put that version on our City website, with a link from our library webpage. 

11: Fiddle with it right to the end. I’ve been attacked by inflatable sharks and whack them with a brick 17 times when I realize it will be even funnier to whack them with a little stuffed Elmo for the last 3 times instead (if you want to know why those are in my suitcase you’ll have to watch the video). And after taking the same trip 19 times Sheila and I decided we wanted to switch, so I went to the rain forest and she took the ocean cruise and got to smack sharks.

12: Back at the library, we’re seeing what we hoped for: Lots of kids saying: “I saw you at my school,” and I’m sure our sign-ups and program attendance will be great. We put a ton of staff hours and a ton of energy into planning, practicing, and presenting, but the payoffs are worth it: High Summer Reading Program sign-ups and Program attendance are obvious goals, but even more important, we see 1,600+ kids who are reminded that the library is a fun place, the staff are nice (and they know our faces and maybe our names), and that reading is cool.

Tucking in Little Fish

Book: Tuck Me In by Dean Hacohen, Illustrated by Sherry Scharschmidt

Puppets: Four or Five animals of just about any kind
Props: At least one blanket; even better - several blankets with animal patterns to match puppets
Presenters: One
Audience: Toddler Time (ones and twos)

Here’s an excellent book to use in Toddler Time, then follow up with puppets. The patterned text reads: “Who needs to be tucked in? ‘I do,’ says Zebra [or Hedgehog, Peacock, etc.]. Good night little Zebra.” And as you say the good night, you move the flap in the shape of a blanket from left to right, neatly covering up the animal. Very simple and very effective.

For a Follow-Up, I gathered a few cute puppets and some blankets. We have some fabric with animal patterns on them, so I decided to pull out the “blanket” first and ask the kids whose blanket this might be. Then out pops Fish (or whoever) and we all say: “Good night, little Fish.” Then I wrap Fish gently in the blanket and bundle her on the table, where she’s soon joined by other blanketed animals. If you don’t have animal blankets, though, you could use anything…if you still want the kids to guess, you can give the sound (“ribbit”) or a brief description (“she’s green and she hops”) before the Pop-Out.

The popping out really catches the kids’ attention, and to draw them in even more you can have everyone say a big: “Shhhhhhh…” as you put each bundled critter onto the table. It's fun to hear the sudden quiet in the midst of a Toddler Time as all the kids are earnestly silent as the animal goes to bed.
The book ends by addressing the kids: "Does anyone else need to be tucked in? Do you? Good night, you!" So the last blanket I pull out of my bag is a plain old baby blanket, and I ask them who this blanket is for. A yawn and a stretch clues them in that it’s for me, and I cuddle up with it. Alternately, you could tuck in a toddler or two from the audience. I tend to avoid that sort of thing because we have 20+ kids and there's a risk it would go on too long, but with a smaller group I'm sure that would be an even better finish.

Squeak a Lot, Buzz a Lot, etc.

Story: Squeak-a-Lot by Martin Waddell, Illustrated by Virginia Muller
Puppets: 2 Mice and a Cat, plus Bee, Chicken, and Dog or substitutes

Props: Bag or box out of which the puppets pop
Presenters: One
Audience: Toddler Time, Preschool Storytime
Link to "Storytelling with Puppets" video demo

I think of this as the perfect puppet story for three year olds, but it also stretches as low as one and up to five or six. It has several of those elements that make it ideal for puppets:

Enjoyable Language: I stick to Waddell’s words pretty closely, especially for the opening: “In an old, old house, lived a small, small mouse who had nobody to play with. So the small, small mouse went out of the house to find someone to play with. And he found….” The bit of rhyme and repetition catches their attention and moves neatly and quickly into the heart of the story.

Pop-outs: If you read this blog you know I love it when a story involves the anticipation of a puppet popping out of the bag, especially when you can draw it out with a little hesitation, as you can here with the “And he found…” And then pull out…”A bee!” Bee and Mouse decide to play a game, and since Mouse doesn’t know any games, Bee teaches him “Buzz-a-Lot,” which involves another of my favorite features:

Songs: You can make up any rhythm or tune for the songs. Mine is more of a chant that goes: “Buzz, buzz, buzz! [Bee] Buzz, buzz, buzz! [Mouse] Buzz, buzz, [Bee] buzz, buzz, [Mouse] buzz! [Both]” You can do some simple puppet work here, with each puppet dancing a bit during their part, then both going straight at the audience on the last buzz, with a little double take thrown in: both look at audience, quickly turn to each other, then back to the audience.

More Language: I like the next refrain of: “But the Mouse didn’t like it a lot. So he went find a new friend, and he found….” He meets Dog (“Woof a Lot”) and Chicken (“Cluck a Lot”) with the same pattern. Or you can substitute any puppets. The repeated language holds the story together really nicely, and then just when the kids think they get the pattern, it leads to...

A Surprise: Now you get to insert a bit of tension and surprise: “and he found….[hesitate]…he found…[hesitate more, and look at the bag with a worried expression]….he found….A Cat!” [pop out Cat and have him menacingly close to Mouse]. This time the game is “Wham Bam Scram!” in the book, but I find that playing “Chase! The! Mouse!” seems to work better along with the puppet chase that ensues. And after Mouse finally escapes, we get to...

A Satisfying Ending: Mouse finally meets another Mouse, teaches him all the games he learned. (It’s a bunch of mice in the book, but one works fine) So you get a nice reprise of the songs and a variation on the verbal refrain: “and they both liked it a lot.” Finally they return to the old, old house and play…..”Sleep a Lot.”

The motion and pop-outs and song refrains are enough to keep the attention of ones and twos in a Toddler Time, but there’s enough story and humor to entertain fours and fives too.

Hide and Seek, Morris and Boris style

Story: “The Game” from Morris and Boris: Three Stories by Bernard Wiseman

Puppets: Moose and Bear, though any pair will do
Props: None
Presenters: One
Audience: Preschool, Family Storytime
Link to "Storytelling with Puppets" video demo

The Morris and Boris stories by Bernard Wiseman are almost as good as “Frog and Toad” for telling with puppets. Similar, since both feature a pair of friends, one a little brighter than the other; but different since Morris and Boris are more slapstick and exaggerated. “The Story” is a very simple one to tell, but always well received. Boris asks Morris if he wants to play a game and Morris doesn’t know what a game is. They end up playing hide and seek and Morris doesn’t really get it. In the book there are many one liners that show how clueless Morris is…I sometimes include these but sometimes not, depending on how deeply I feel like going into pure silliness. The hide and seek game is the main piece, so I don’t want to get too hung up on wordplay and jokes. Our library no longer owns the book, which is out of print, so I’m not ever sure which bits I’ve added or changed. But even with some trimming, the story is just filled with surefire-laugh-out-loud-preschooler-moments. 7 of these are noted in brackets:

Morris says he can’t be It because he can’t count to ten. To prove it he tries: “1, 2, 3, 7, 12, 99, 4, 8…” [1] Very funny to a three year old. I tend to soften Boris a bit from his fairly grumpy self in the book, so I’ll have him say: “you’re right, you haven’t learned to count to ten yet, but you will.” Plus that makes me feel like I’m not making any listeners who can’t count to ten yet feel bad, which I’m sure is me being way too oversensitive, but it just feels better that way.

Boris covers his eyes and counts to ten while Morris hides. This is a chance for some fun puppet play. Morris goes under your leg, then pops out, looks up, down, tries behind your back, wherever [2]…then finds a spot just at 10. The kids love watching this. As soon as Boris says “ready or not, here I come,” Morris pops out and says “I’m ready!” A Boris double-take, looking at Morris, the audience, then back at Morris, is a great way to show his surprise and impatience. [3] Boris tells Morris to keep quiet next time, counts to ten again, Morris does his frantic search for a spot, then settles behind something (leg, bag, whatever) with his antlers sticking way out. [4] Another double-take from Boris as he spots the antlers. Then Morris’ reaction: “but I didn’t make any noise, how did you find me?” [5]

For the final act, Morris tries being It, and since he can’t count to ten he sings a song: “Oh give me a home / where the buffalo roam / and the moose and the grumpy bear play / a game called hide and seek / and I better not peek / or Boris will yell at me all day.” [6] Or whatever you want to make up. Then Morris takes a quick look for Boris (“not here…not there…”) and says he’s going home, so Boris jumps out. “I found you!” says Morris [7] and kids totally get the trick he just played.

If I have time I sometimes extend this by having them try another game: “catch.” (which adds another five surefire-laugh-out-loud-preschooler-moments to the total). Morris says he has a ball, but gets one that’s too big, like a beach ball. [8] He throws it at Boris and it flattens him. [9] Boris picks it up to get even, but it’s too heavy so he drops it on his own head and gets flattened again.

[10] They finally get the right size, play catch for a while, the Morris throws a high one that bops Boris on the head (yes, it flattens him). [11] Boris throws it back hard at Morris to get even, but Morris ducks (“Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me!”) [12] So basically, lots of playground-ish pranks that are right at the level of preschoolers.

The story also works well as a puppet show with a stage, where the hide and seek bit can be played out even more. My two other favorite Morris and Boris stories to tell with puppets are Morris Has a Cold and “Morris is a Baby-sitter” (from Morris is a Cowboy, a Policeman, and a Baby Sitter (published 51 years ago!)). Also hard to track down, but worth it. And if you don’t have a moose and/or a bear, it’s fine to substitute others (and still let the audience know where the original story comes from of course).