Whose Mouse?

Book:  Whose Mouse are You  by Robert Kraus, Illustrated by Jose Aruego

Puppets:  Mouse, Mother Mouse, Father Mouse, Sister Mouse, Baby Mouse;  Cat

Props:  Basket (or something else for a Trap);  Car (or something else for Sister to travel Far From Home in)

Presenters:  One

Audience:   Toddler Time  (ones and twos), Preschoolers
Video:  How to Tell Whose Mouse are You? with Puppets

This is one of the first books I did with puppets and props, way back when I first started Toddler Times in 1990 or so.  And still a favorite.  The question and answer format of the text seems a little abstract for ones and twos, but they always seem to get it just fine, and I follow the words from the book pretty much exactly.  I especially like the slightly formal phrasing of the refrain: “what of your Father?...”

So it’s “Whose mouse are you?” (addressing Little Mouse).  “Nobody’s mouse…” says Little Mouse to me.  Then it’s: “Nobody’s mouse?  What of your mother?...?”  and so on.

I kind of draw out Little Mouse’s response, which heightens the suspense a bit plus gives me time to pull out the puppets and props:  “My Mother?  My mother?  [Pull out Mother Mouse]  My mother is…….Caught by a cat!” [Pull out Cat puppet and have her pounce (but not too menacingly) on top of Mother Mouse].  Shake head sadly and ask:  “What of your father?...” 

For this story I place puppets and props on a table rather than stuffing them back into a bag after they appear.  So eventually you’ve got Mother under the cat, Father inside trap (a basket, bowl, or anything traplike), and Sister far from home (in a toy car) all lined up on the table.

At which point the story turns around in a way that’s very satisfying to two year olds:  Little Mouse saves each one.  I have him first declare what he’ll do:  “I’ll save my mother from the cat!” and then show him doing it.  It’s best to go slow with the puppet actions so the very young kids can process it and fully enjoy the sight of Little Mouse pulling Fother out of that trap and tossing that Cat into the air. 

It ends with "Now whose mouse are you?," and Little Mouse lists off his family members, much hapier now.  And there's a very pleasing added twist:  "I'm my brother's mouse!"  Confused Narrator asks:  "Your brother's mouse?!" (because earlier Mouse had said "I have none.")  But now Little Mouse repeats:  "My brother's Mouse!......He's brand new!"  And you pull out your cute little finger puppet mouse (or whatever smallish mouse you can find). 

As a storyteller, tone of voice goes a long way in this story, and you can be pretty broad with them:  worried when Mouse describes his family’s perils; triumphant when he rescues them; pleased when they’re safe; and surprised with Little Brother pops out.  Although it’s a story with puppets, I really think it’s the storytelling that makes it work.  And it’s always fun to notice how strongly even very young children respond to the voices and facial expressions of a storyteller.

We’re on a six week programming break at my library, hence the reduced number of posts here.  But we start up full speed in mid-September, which means more frequent posts soon…

Big and Little Follow-Up

Book: Big and Little by Margaret Miller

Puppets: Various animal pairs of different sizes

Props: Any pairs of things you have around to show size differences

Presenters: One

Audience: Toddler Time (ones and twos)

Many of Margaret Miller’s photo books work well with a Toddler Story Time, and this one shows the concept of big and little very clearly. If I were reading it one on one, I’d stop and ask questions and talk about the pictures with a child, but in a Toddler Story Time presentation, I mostly stick to the words. After the last page, though, there’s a great opportunity to continue and expand on the concept by doing a Follow-Up with puppets. After the book I just go to the bag and say, “let’s see if we have some big and little animals in here.” And pull out samples.

I’ll start with a couple of obvious size contrasts, like Big Bear and Little Bear. Then get a little trickier: Big Fish and Little Fish are closer in size, but the difference is still clear enough for two year olds to see it. So I’ll pull out one Fish and say: “Do you think this is the Big Fish or the Little Fish?” Getting in the idea that size is relative, but in a playful way. I interact with the kids much more with the puppets than I did with the books.

Then I’ll try a couple other variations, like three sizes: Little Frog, Big Frog, and then add Bigger Frog. Another fun one is to do a Big and a Little, then one that’s Identical, like these Turtles. I use mostly puppets for this, because I'm a puppet guy and I seem to have a lot of them.   But I also like to throw in a non-puppet pair. Doing a board book (Small) next to a picture book version of the same title (Big) is fun.  But really any objects similar in name but different in size work.  The idea of taking a concept from a book and playing with it with whatever stuff you have around is a great model for parents and caregivers, and it’s one they can do so easily at home, with or without puppets.

Catching Armadillos, Putting Them on Pillows

Book:  A Hunting We Will Go by John Langstaff, Illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker

Puppets:  Any 5+ that rhyme with your props

Props:  Any 5+ that rhyme with your puppets

Presenters:  one

Audience:   Preschoolers or Toddlers

Here’s an easy puppets & props story where you mostly just have to pull stuff out of a bag or box.  If the group doesn’t know the song, it’s simple to learn, and it works well to have them all sing “A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go, we’ll catch a….”  And then they stop and wait to see what puppet you pop out.  “…Cat!”  And put him in a “…Hat!...And then we’ll let him go.”  Then after that dramatic sequence, where the words and actions are the teller’s, they naturally re-join you in another verse of the song. 

I like the way the rhymes work with different ages.  In Toddler Time (where I used it last week), the ones and twos just about never guess what object will complete the rhyme, though you can often see the grown-ups whispering it to them.  But I know they do hear the rhyme, even if they can’t yet predict it.  With Preschool Storytime, on the other hand, the kids often do guess, with varied levels of correctness, but almost always with strong evidence of imagination and involvement.   

As for which puppets and objects to use, I like to mix in simple ones with others that are more surprising.  Cat – Hat and Fox – Box are fine.  Pig – Wig can be pretty funny.  I’ve had fun with extending the –og rhyme:   “…catch a Frog and put him on a Hog…and put them on a Dog…and put them all on a Log.”  They puppet holding/stacking gets a little messy, but still fun.  Cat/Rat/Bat/Hat can be done the same way, but I’d only use an extension once. 

With the Toddlers I did another favorite:   “…we’ll catch a….Ball?”  And then I pull out my cool Armadillo puppet, which rolls and velcros into a shelled ball.  I toss him around a bit and then:  “Wait a minute…this isn’t a ball!”  And unroll him to reveal “…an Armadillo…and put him on a Pillow.”  I usually like to close with “Bear…and put him in Underwear…” which gets the automatic laugh that the word always earns, even with two year olds. 

Another variation is to make the catching of the animals part of the fun.  I tried using a net once, but decided to drop the idea.  It was fun for the kids to watch as I nabbed the animal in a big red net, sometimes after a near miss or two.  On the other hand, it’s awkward to get the animal out of the net, put the net aside (where the kids won’t be tempted to come up and try it out themselves), and then pull out the appropriate rhyming prop.  In other words, the net stole the show and detracted from the normally satisfying rhythmic, rhyming sequence.  So instead I just do a little playing around with catching the animal with my hand, doing the near miss thing one time, making the animal hide and asking “where’d he go?” another time…and doing the others just straight.  

Because the song is so easy to learn and remember, I usually encourage the grown-up to try it at home, and remind them that although it’s fun with props, just singing the song works great too, developing phonological awareness and challenging the child’s imagination.

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.