Customer Reviews

Making Puppets Come Alive: How to Learn and Teach Hand Puppetry (Dover Craft Books)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book for people who want to teach classes on how to work with hand puppets or want to improve their own puppetry skills. The focus is on hands-on manipulation of the puppets. (I am going to use it as the basis of a workshop with a theatrical group.)

It gives an overall curriculum, well illustrated and explained, for making your puppets come alive. For example, it breaks the movements down into finger, wrist, and arm movements. It gives exercises for creating puppet voices, working with props, and improvisation.

I've been looking for a book like this: so many of them are just about making the puppets, or the overall setup of a puppet theater. This may be a one-of-a-kind. Puppets are actors, and this book is a great actor's manual!

What lies beneath this simply drawn cover is a comprehensive hand puppetry textbook that is as interesting and accessible as it is theatrically sound.

I first discovered this gem in my local library and began to study and apply it's exercises. Plenty of photographs to serve as illustrations of movements that are performed by the puppeteer's fingers, wrists and arms. The results are an aquired vocabulary of movements and techniques that allow even a simple hand puppet to portray age, mood, intent, emotion and energy as well as perform a range of tasks that can deliver a real character to an audience.

Simple enough for kids to learn and great for group intruction. I am currently working on a TV and video project and have purchased an extra copy to bring to the studio as a reference allowing me to expand the range of expression with the puppets used in the production.

"Making Puppets Come Alive" delivers a superb explanation of one of the best (if not the best) hand puppet manipulation systems in puppet theatre. Plenty of photos to guide and clear text.

This is an excellent book for the novice as well for the experienced puppetier. It is simple, visual and is an excellent tool for teaching. I whole heartily recommend it for the student and the teacher.

The book probably is very informative but as I have been waiting
since I ordered this book on the 6th October 2011 and Amazon did not dispatch it until the 26th October 2011 10 days later, I have yet still to receive it, so at present I cannot comment!

So this is a review of Amazon's service!
Why does it take so long for Amazon to dispatch goods after you have ordered it?
How come I can order goods from around the other side of the world at the same time I order from Amazon and receive it weeks before I receive my Amazon order? Maybe Amazon needs to look at their customer service quality

This is a very interesting book! I have started a puppet ministry at church and this book is very helpful teaching my puppeteers how to make the puppets move realistically. Thanks alot!

Clearly, and step by step this wonderful book show you how to make puppets come alive in your hands.

Parents, teachers as well as anyone with an interest in theater will learn a lot from this book, and quickly. You will be able to teach children how to express action, emotion and humor quickly. For children of 4th grade and up, you can just give them the book, and a few sock puppets, and they'll be off!

Zoe Lucky: and the Green Gables' Mystery

In my book, Zoe Lucky and the Green Gables' Mystery, Paki, the African Grey Parrot is Zoe's sidekick. He is quite a character and I wanted to be able to share him with my audiences when I gave a book reading or signing. I ordered an African Grey Parrot hand puppet and have been having a great time learning to manipulate him.

This book has been a great help in showing me how to bring him alive.

Nothing that can't be found in other books of this ilk...

MJL