Kamishibai Story Theater

Book excerpt: De Las Casas has adapted 25 folktales from across Asia for whole classroom use, borrowing a Japanese method of storytelling through pictures. The book offers tips on rehearsing and detailed discussion and background of the Kamishibai processes, and it describes how to coordinate grade-level story presentations. Reproducible tales can be distributed to each member of the class to aide in creating illustrations. The stories in Kamishibai Story Theater will delight children in grades 2-6, enticing them to participate in their own story fest. De Las Casas has adapted 25 folktales from across Asia for whole classroom use, borrowing a Japanese method of storytelling through pictures. Kamishibai theater harkens back to itinerant storytellers (Kamishibai Men) who conveyed their tales by means of illustrated cards slid into slots in wooden stages built on the back of their bicycles. This book includes an introductory chapter describing in detail the methods to use in coaching students in the art of Kamishibai Story Theater. It offers tips on rehearsing, and detailed discussion and background of the Kamishibai processes, and it describes how to coordinate grade-level story presentations. Reproducible tales can be distributed to each member of the class to aide in creating illustrations. Spot illustrations for each tale give students an idea of the flavor of their drawings for that story. The stories in Kamishibai Story Theater will delight children in grades 2-6, enticing them to participate in their own story fest.