Picture books, little kids, and the theater

I have forever loved picture books. My favorite books were always the ones in which the reader (mainly my dad) would create exciting voices. I always knew that no matter what that a voice for a character would always be the same whenever the book was read. I find myself now when reading to my 7 year old sister impersonating the same voices.

Well that’s exciting...yawn...is what you may be thinking. This does relate I promise. One of my all time favorite picture books when I was little was Tops and Bottoms.   for those of you who sadly have yet to hear of this tale, it is a charming story of a rabbit who tricks a bear into giving him the best part of the vegetables that have been grown his garden. I can still hear the voice my dad created of Bear snoring and the Hair laughing.

I am a big fan of the theater. Every summer since 1st grade I have been in a theater camp called Creative Theater Experience (CTE). This past summer I joined a program for CTE in the mornings before camp starts, this program, called tyros, was created to help teenagers become ready to be a counselor for CTE in the future. Part of the counselors’ job is to write and direct a short play for little kids between the ages of 5 and10. For practice of this big responsibility, those in the tyros program had to write a play based off of a childrens book. When I got home that evening I searched for a book that would be allot of fun and lo and behold I found, yup you guessed it, Tops and Bottoms.  After much time of giving characters lines and making sure there were equal parts for about 10 kids, I was done. I was so proud of my final draft. That next day I had the chance to share it with others and I got to direct my fellow cast members to be bunnies, a bear, a tortoise etc. I probably had so much fun with this writing assignment because it involved so much imagination and included so many of the things I love.