We own two Nutcracker books that we read this week.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, E.T.A. Hoffmann's Classic Tale illustrated by Gail DeMarcken - This book is beautifully illustrated. C likes to read this year round, but it is a bit long for R.
The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers is the perfect Nutcracker book for young children. As the author notes at the end of the book, her version follows the story of the beloved ballet and speaks to a child. I bought this book last year before we went to see the performance, and it was a great introduction to the ballet.
We also read Christmas Morning by Cheryl Ryan. This is a fun book that is written in the format of This is the House that Jack Built. It begins with snow falling on a house where children are sleeping, and after several pages, it builds up to Saint Nick delivering presents to the sleeping family. We see an eye peeking out of a package, and a few pages later we discover that it belongs to the Rat King,who leads his pack and kidnaps the doll in the stocking next to them. A Nutcracker and other toys come to the rescue, so that all is back to normal by Christmas morning.
In addition to reading the books, I printed Nutcracker characters on card stock, C and R colored them, and we glued them to craft sticks to make puppets. Now we can have our own production of the Nutcracker.
For more book recommendations, hop on over to What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.
10 comments:
Three of mine were in a local production of The Nutcracker last year - and I declared myself done with all theatrical performances, too :)
But, they'd probably love those books!
I love your fingerpuppets!
I'm jealous, going to see the nutcracker is one of the things I really want to do.
Oh, what a great idea! We are taking Pip to see The Nutcracker this Thursday, and books and puppets are a great way to let him savor the experience. Thank you for your post.
Have fun!! I use to see this every year growing up!
Too funny. I am not into theater either! I especially don't care for The Nutcracker.
LOL!
One of these years I have to make arrangements to take Selena to the Nutcracker. Of course that will mean hotel and the whole nine yards, since they perform 3 hours away from us. Next year though I will definitely have to see if I can get my hands on these books.
We're going on Wednesday, and I am a bit nervous. Our previous attempts at live performances didn't end well. Perhaps we can try puppets too - great idea. And I have to pull out the second book that we also have.
I love nutcracker...have fun! =)
Well, I am pretty much going to have to ignore the fact that your family members are not going to the theater anymore, although if that is based on Radio City, I might not hold a grudge for too long. We have a pop-up book of the Nutcracker that I quite like.
We saw a performance of the Nutcracker last weekend, too. My daughter could have been a mouse this year, but I decided that she was too young too withstand all the practices.
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