Book Descriptions
for Ashley Bryan's Puppets by Ashley Bryan
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
The boundless creativity of artist Ashley Bryan extends to puppets he constructs from found objects. “These treasures, Washed in from the sea, Are cast-off challenges to me. I cannot rest till I create. A life that we may celebrate.” And here are more than twenty-five lives created from bone and wood and pieces of glass, fabric scraps and beads, shells and other baubles and bits. The puppets have distinct personalities, with stories and voices articulated in poems that speak to their history and purpose and the things from which they are made. Bryan references The Book of African Names as a place to turn to give names to puppets readers might make themselves. Readers are also invited to write poems for three puppets pictured that are voiceless in this volume, and to find the three puppets that “snuck into the book” without being included in the photographs showing the puppets in groups. Poet Nikki Giovanni offers a tribute to Bryan in an afterword, and also a poem for the puppet Wambui (“Singer of Songs”) that he created for her. (Age 7 and older)
CCBC Choices 2015. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2015. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
Beloved Coretta Scott King Award–winning storyteller and creator Ashley Bryan reveals the vibrant spirit of found objects in this magnificent treasury of poetry and puppets.
Little Cranberry Island. It’s a small island, with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, but it’s got more than its share of treasures—including the magnificent Ashley Bryan himself, a world-renowned storyteller and author of such classics as All Night, All Day and Beautiful Blackbird. Daily, for decades, Ashley has walked up and down the beach, stopping to pick up sea glass, weathered bones, a tangle of fishing net, an empty bottle, a doorknob. Treasure.
And then, with glue and thread and paint and a sprinkling of African folklore, Ashley breathes new life into these materials. Others might consider it beach junk, but Ashley sees worlds of possibilities.
Ashley Bryan’s two-foot-tall hand puppets swell with personality and beauty, and in this majestic collection they make their literary debut, each with a poem that tells of their creation and further enlivens their spirit.
Little Cranberry Island. It’s a small island, with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, but it’s got more than its share of treasures—including the magnificent Ashley Bryan himself, a world-renowned storyteller and author of such classics as All Night, All Day and Beautiful Blackbird. Daily, for decades, Ashley has walked up and down the beach, stopping to pick up sea glass, weathered bones, a tangle of fishing net, an empty bottle, a doorknob. Treasure.
And then, with glue and thread and paint and a sprinkling of African folklore, Ashley breathes new life into these materials. Others might consider it beach junk, but Ashley sees worlds of possibilities.
Ashley Bryan’s two-foot-tall hand puppets swell with personality and beauty, and in this majestic collection they make their literary debut, each with a poem that tells of their creation and further enlivens their spirit.
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.
