1. MLIS 7420 Fall 2009 Mary Helen Copeland Tall Tales Group Presented To: 8 & 9 year olds Target Age: 7 – 10 / 2 nd – 4 th grade

2. Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears A West African Tale By Verna Aardema Pictures by Leo and Diana Dillion The Dial Press, New York 1975

3. The children knew I was going to tell them a story. To get them settled and in their place, I held the scarf up to cover my face. Every time, when they saw that curtain, they quieted and waited to hear the tale.

4. One morning . . .

5. Then he stuck two sticks in his ears and went off, mek, mek, mek, through the reeds.

6. “ I’m afraid he is plotting some mischief against me!”

7. He flew into the forest crying kaa, kaa, kaa!

8. It broke an fell on an owl’s nest, killing one of the owlets.

9. Now it was Mother Owl who woke the sun . . .

10. They came and sat down, pem, pem, pem, around the council fire.

11. That big bird came flapping up.

12. The King nodded his head and said to the council:

13. “ Oh King,” said the rabbit, “it was python’s fault.”

14. All the animals laughed . . .

15. King Lion pulled out the sticks, purup, purup.

16. “ Punish the mosquito! Punish the mosquito!”

17. KPOA! The moral of this tale is; Don’t tell tales and always get the whole story before you get angry with your friends.

18. Materials Brown Paper Sack Brown Paper Scissors Tape Markers String Imagination Creativity

19. Working hard on our puppets. The boys cut stick shapes out of the brown construction paper and taped these onto the back of the brown bag.

20. Cutting, Taping & Coloring They tied string to the sticks coming out of the ears. Then they frayed the end of the string to represent the mosquito buzzing .

21. Adding a few final touches. They used only blue, green, yellow and orange markers to draw patterns on the brown bag for the iguana skin.

22. Ready for the puppet show!