Good Reads Library
This Week's Story Time: For the Birds
Spring is here and my cats and I have been watching their favorite show--the birds at the feeder in our backyard.
We always have a lot of mourning doves, sparrows and the occasional cardinal. But this spring we've also got a woodpecker or two and blue jays, which I haven't seen much around here in recent years.
And last week I was astonished to see a flock of my favorite spring birds, the robins. I see them in the area, but they seldom visit our backyard--not enough worms, I guess.
But they were here last week, and that inspired me to read this:
Not that I needed much excuse to use this book! Anne and Harlow Rockwell's charming cycle of books (The others are Apples and Pumpkins, The First Snow, and my girls' adored favorite, At the Beach )are perfect seasonal titles for two and three year olds.
Baby Bird tries to fly, falls out of his nest, is sniffed at /jumped over/menaced by /different animals and finally, tries again. This time he is successful and proudly flies over everyones' heads. Funny pictures (each page has a series of panels like a cartoon)& simple rhyming text.
Margaret Read MacDonald is a librarian, a storyteller, and a blessing to any children's librarian. Her incredible masterwork "The Storyteller's Sourcebook" is a godsend for finding folk and fairy tales by genre, and her storytelling books are one of the most important resources for beginning tellers.
Her story "Kanji Jo"-- a Liberian story about a mother hen and her chicks is retold with illustrations in this collection of 5 stories: Tuck Me In Tales. I told the story using puppets--I have an adorable little "birds nest" puppet from Folkmanis and I adapted the story to suit the other bird puppets we have.
Diane Wolkstein is known both for her storytelling and for the stories she has collected, especially Hatian tales. "The Magic Wings" is a Chinese folk story of a little goose girl who wants to fly and the chaos it creates in her village. This story is fun to tell, and even more fun to act out. I used props (hats) and tdid this with some 4 to 6 year olds and the kids really got into their parts!
Sadly, this too is out of print, but it should be available in many libraries as it was a "Reading Rainbow" selection some years ago.
We also sang the "Five Little Chickadees" song, which I learned long, long ago in elementary school in the Bronx. Our music teacher never would have guessed that at least one kid learning it would be using it many (many!) years later!. You can find the words at http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/animal-rhymes.htm , and somewhere I know there's a source for the tune.
We also danced to "When the Red Red Robin Goes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along". I knew it was an oldie and that my father loved the song. What I didn't know (but do now) is that it was an Al Jolson hit. My dad was (and is) a big time Jolson fan--he recalls my grandma actually coming one day to meet him at school because a new Jolson movie was out and she knew he'd want to see it! I have not been able to get a clip of this--our version was on the sadly out of print "Happy Feet" recording by Fred Penner.
That's all for March. I'm hopping into April because it's:
Huh,huh,huh,huh,huhhhhhhh........................................
