The 10th annual Family Fest got a little help in making the annual literacy event such a great success Sunday.
“Puppets just work,” said Claire Schreiner, Cariboo Chilcotin Partners for Literacy director.
“Puppets go hand-in-hand with literacy: they’re a wonderful way to present stories to children and get kids to interact. Kids will interact with the puppets directly and will talk to them; the puppets can sing songs, tell stories, dance and share rhymes and will directly engage with the children,” she explained.
She said that she’s been having fun with puppets for 40 years.
“Kids and adults love the make-believe aspect; you can see the smiles on their faces as they meet the different characters,” she continued, adding that she writes some of her own puppet skits and adapts others.
“I look for stories with lots of dialogue and humour; they’ll often tell a good story and get a point across,” she said.
“I was asked to do a puppet show for Remembrance Day at the library, and wrote a puppet play that had a daughter and grandmother looking through an old trunk and remembering the war,” she stated.
“There was a fighter pilot scene in it; it was a wonderful way for children to learn about history and be individually engaged in the story.”
Linda Purjue, with her tub of delightful puppets, was new to the Family Festival.
A retired substitute school teacher, an avid local artist, songwriter and writer, she added her own puppets and story-telling skills to the story tent at the festival.
She joined Schreiner and Communities that Care co-ordinator Carla Bullinger for some lively puppet fun with crowds of kids and their parents.
“I love puppets — I never really grew up and puppets give me a legitimate reason to keep playing with toys,” she laughed, and said that literacy is something she supports with her whole heart.
“I love words and reading and languages, and don’t think it’s ever too early to put a book in front of a child.
“Books expand a child’s experience beyond what they can physically do, and they can learn about different creatures, ideas and places. Books expand their whole horizon and put a child inside the minds of people in all kinds of situations,” she explained.
“They can learn empathy for people throughout the whole world.”