Puppet Making

The debut book of Jeremy Tankard's high-flying Bird series! Bird wakes up feeling grumpy. Too grumpy to eat or play -- too grumpy even to fly. "Looks like I'm walking today," says Bird. He walks past Sheep, who offers to keep him company. He walks past Rabbit, who also could use a walk. Raccoon, Beaver, and Fox join in, too. Before he knows it, a little exercise and companionship help Bird shake his bad mood. Praised by the Wall Street Journal as "comic perfection," this winsome, refreshingly original picture book is sure to help kids (and grown-ups) giggle away their grumpies, too! Bird's impeckably crafted, hilarious melodramas continue in the Grumpy Bird board book, Boo Hoo Bird, Hungry Bird, and coming in 2018, Sleepy Bird.

Offers tips, tricks, and techniques for making animal sock puppets, from an elephant and a monkey to a bat and a lion.

This wonderful book is packed with a range of quick, inexpensive ways to make the main types of puppets using objects that are spare, scrap, recycled or easily accessible. With imagination and creative flair, it explains the principles and techniques that can transform a plastic bottle into a hippopotamus hand puppet or a few cardboard rolls into a dancing marionette. Alongside the practical information, it also gives staging advice so that your puppets can perform as living and believable characters. This is truly a book that will bring the magical world of puppet theatre within reach of everyone, whatever their time or resource limits.

For what must be one of the most creative and satisfying of crafts, Puppets and Puppet-Making provides the perfect introduction to the art as well as the means for mastering the more complicated skills and subtle effects.

Unlike other performing arts, puppetry is perhaps the only art form in which directing, acting, writing, designing, sculpture, and choreography are combined. In effect, the performer is creating an artistic entertainment that will appeal to audiences of all ages — in homes, in theaters, and in classrooms. This lucid, easy-to-follow book was specifically conceived to teach beginners how to bring a hand puppet to life and how, with practice, to develop the skills needed to mount an amateur puppet show — complete with staging, costumes, and special effects. Award-winning puppeteers Larry Engler and Carol Fijan provide ingenious finger, wrist, and arm exercises that are crucial for creating a full working range of puppet motions and emotions. They also cover the elements of good puppet theatrical technique: speech, voice use, and synchronization; stage deportment and interactions; improvisation, dramatic conflict, role characterization, and more. Every detail is clearly explained and beautifully illustrated with photographs, specific chapters being devoted to the use of props, puppet voices and movements, the construction of simple stages and lighting effects, and much more. A splendid addition to the literature on this subject, Making Puppets Come Alive is "the best book on hand puppetry we've seen." — The Whole Kids Catalog.

Provides step-by-step instructions for making a variety of puppets, including finger puppets, sock puppets, and marionettes.

An ideal introduction to design and technology for young children, this series has been developed to support the units in the Schemes of Work at KS1 and lower KS2. It presents key information through a combination of clear text and visual images, while questions ask the reader to express their own views about the topics.

Pippa is a little pigeon with big blue-sky ambitions: to fly solo and explore the world beyond her nest. Her parents are less than thrilled with their risk-taking feathered fledging and smother her with well-meant yet suffocating warnings until one day she ignores them all, and takes the leap into the unknown...alone.