Cell phone videos

Last week I gave a workshop on story hour stretches, games and songs for the Children's Services librarians at the Kansas City (MO) Public Library. I LOVE working with librarians, partly because I am still one to my core, even though I haven't worked as a librarian since 1994. It's not the diploma that proves it (though I have one). It's in my DNA. You laugh? Here's a quote from a piece my mother wrote about her mother-in-law, not officially a librarian but...

Like her father before her, she chose the books for Bristol's Rogers Free Library, and read most of them first. (Some categories she shunned, letting other Library people choose the romances and Westerns.)

Granny Howe referred to those as trashy novels, my father said. All but those were delivered to the house before they ever got to the library.

Sidetracked. Isn't this post about videos? One of the librarians at the Westport Branch sent me links for four videos she put on Youtube. Keep in mind that these were taken on a cell phone!

You can see another of the librarians recording the workshop on her iPad, so there may be more videos to come. 

More puppets

Just a few more pics of the menagerie. Here are some creatures from the watery world, some of whom will join me for "Make a splash at the library" summer reading programs in June and July:

Kisserella, Ray, Prince (formerly known as Frog), Billy, and an unnamed dragonfly.

Billy the Turtle was my first puppet, bought at a fair in Middletown CT from a puppet builder in Colorado (Leslie Larson of Big Game Trophies and Puppets). Soon after I got him, my sister asked me to show him to friends. In the process, Billy nipped their dog on the nose. My sister said, "Priscilla, did you see that? Billy just bit the dog on the nose! Did you see that?" As soon as she said it, she realized that not only did I see it, I had something to do with it. I've used this as an example of how focus makes puppets believable, even to adults.

Here are a few miscellaneous animals. The sheep is Felice, the dog with blue velvet on the underside of her ears is Martha, the goat is Kiddy and the dog is Louie. If you roll Louie on his back, you can manipulate his hind leg so it kicks when you scratch his belly. Nice.
Next are some of the finger puppets. See the white mouse? If you put her on your right index finger and hold her with your left hand, then twine her tail around your third and fourth fingers of your right hand and twitch it slightly, while giving her a little tremor, she looks real. Don't take her into a restaurant, please.

I don't take most of these with me to gigs, except the bug next to the dolphin in the lower right corner. He lives in Trixie's sleeve and comes out for "Poor little bug on the wall."

After I took these pictures, I bought a new puppet. I'll have to give him his own post.

New video on Youtube

I've been working on another blog post, but it's taking time to gather my thoughts. As a stopgap, here's the latest video I put up on my Youtube channel:

This is from my DVD The Bully Billy Goat. I use the song in many of my programs as a way to give kids a wiggle break, and also as a way for us all to release emotions. I had a really cool kid at San Roberto school in Monterrey make fake tears on his face with his water bottle for the sad verse (I didn't get a chance to tell his mother how happy I was to have Joe in the front row--he was the best listener in that audience).

I don't bill myself as a singer--my hope is that I can encourage other storytellers, teachers and librarians to sing with kids, no matter the quality of their singing voices.

In light of the H1N1 flu, it's not such a good idea to encourage kids to put their fingers in their mouths. They'll do it anyway, but since I was in Mexico (and had one class not be able to attend a performance because they were in quarantine) I've changed the way I do this song, just making my voice sound like I'm underwater without using my finger. Not as funny, and not as good a photo opportunity, but there it is.