Online live puppet show to entertain kids under lockdown
AFTER introducing South Africans to Khoisan history, heritage and folklore with a Nama story last weekend, National Book Week’s Books Beyond Words online storytelling event will present a live puppet show this weekend.
Margaret Auerbach of Spellbound Puppets will present “Forest Adventure”. Auerbach is a professional puppeteer and has been doing shows for schools, parties and special events for a number of years. She also facilitates puppet-making workshops.
The story train chugs along this weekend with tales presented in Afrikaans by Martelize Faber. She will read: Sneeuwitjie en die sewe dwergies and Die takkie wat nie wou knak nie.
The weekly event hosted by South Africa’s annual reading awareness week, National Book Week (NBW), dedicated to encouraging leisure reading and promoting the importance of books, has been inviting storytellers every weekend since the lockdown began in March for a live event to tell children an interesting story, including from their own books.
NBW is a joint initiative of the SA Book Development Council and the Department of Arts and Culture.
“The isolation has been hard on families. It has been our effort to lend harried parents a helping hand and keep children busy, entertained and informed while they are in the lockdown and, in most cases, bored,” said SA Book Development Council chief executive Elitha van der Sandt.
“Storytelling has tremendous value in promoting literacy, books and reading. Over the past seven weeks we have invited a number of celebrated storytellers to create a happy environment for children and make stories accessible to as many children as possible. Never have stories and the power of the imagination been so important than in this time of enforced isolation.
“We hope our efforts, and those of our storytellers, will help children retreat into their own world for a bit,” said Van der Sandt.
Join Auerbach and Faber tomorrow at 11am, on NBW’s Facebook page.