We kicked off the Year of the Rabbit with a shadow puppet performance of the Korean folk tale, The Rabbit and the Dragon King, at the Page Presents class on February 4; and a hand puppet performance of the same story plus a Lion Dance at our Music & Movement story time the next day.
Page the Bookworm introduced the rather elaborate shadow puppets I had made, and the puppet show was a huge success.
My friend Nadia had seen a great dragon craft in the February issue of FamilyFun Magazine, and she had taken photos of the article with her cell phone and emailed them to me. Now the article, including templates, is available online. But it was not available when she sent it to me, so I created my own templates based on the photographs.
My husband Stuart had saved lots of egg cartons, and I spent a lot of time (including the snow day when the library was closed!) painting 25 egg cartons, inside and out. Thanks to the wonderful help of my colleague, Gail, and my fabulous teen volunteer, Gregoria, and to the serendipitous discovery of two bolts of very funky seventies upholstery fabric in a closet I was cleaning out, we had everything we needed for this truly awesome puppet.
This was, hands down, the most elaborate craft we have attempted. But it was so worth it! The kids and their parents stuck with the project, complex and time consuming as it was, because they could see what a fabulous treasure they would have to take home with them.
Mr. Matt had brought ten thousand origami cranes folded by his spiritual community, so we festooned the library with them, and everyone got to take some lucky cranes home with them.
