Program Prep Time

With the writers conference over (coming in at 4 am made today a short day!) I am moving on to the programs coming up this week: storytelling at the two libraries in my home county and presenting in the Oral Traditions tent at the WV Folk Festival.

I'm also working on puppet crafts to go with programs that are coming up later this month. I make a mess when I craft!


The storytelling programs can be easy to plan; I have a large stock of stories I can tell easily. But I perform at these two libraries every other year or so, and I don't like to repeat stories too often. A program of mixed new stories and old favorites is my goal.


So, what stories go on the list? That's what I am working on today. I prepared a flannelboard for a new story that I told at Migration Celebration last month. I liked the story, and the audience reacted well to it, but I thought that this one might work even better with visual aids. What is the story? It is a tale from Burma about why the vulture is ugly and bald.

In the story, the vulture begins to moult. Now we all know birds lose their feathers so new feathers can grow in. But vulture worried so much that the other birds took pity on him and decided that each would give him one of their feathers so he would stop worrying. Each bird gave a different color feather until the vulture looked very handsome indeed.



But he became so vain and bragged so much about his lovely coat of feathers he made the birds angry and they took back their feathers and pecked all the feathers off the vulture's head as well. Which is why to this day vulture has no feathers on his head and still wears a dusty coat of old feathers.

It's a simple tale, and I believe that it will work well with the flannelboard vulture, feathers of various colors that attach to him during the telling, bird props of various bird species that chirp (so we can talk about their songs as well), and a red head to cover the vulture's head at the end of the story.

Wooden spoon and finger puppet crafts are in progress. I am sure the kids will do a better job than I do. I plan it that way--make my samples simple and not too perfect so they feel sure they can do as well or better.


Now I am looking for a story with a king, a queen, a dragon and a fairy. I have these puppets and I want a story to tell with them. Off I go to search! or write my own as the case may be.

Anyone got a cool unicorn story? I bought a very neat new puppet recently...