While watching The Muppet Movie last night, I was reminded of how great an influence Jim Henson and his compatriots have had on me.  I learned all of my puppet skills from them – and from my older brother and sister – and those skills are one of the most important tools in my children’s librarian toolbox.  Not something you’d think to put on a resume (“Puppet skills: Consistently and competently emulate the Muppets when using puppets”), nor ask about when interviewing a candidate for a children’s librarian position (“That’s great that you have an MLS and ten years of experience, but can you use puppets???”), yet those puppet skills are completely and totally essential to the success of any children’s librarian.  If you can’t use puppets well in a storytime, it means that you’re maintaining too much of your adult ego, and you’re not really living in the moment and letting go – letting things flow.

Which is not to say that I’m perfect at it, because I’m definitely not.  But there are those days, or even just moments, when I bring out a puppet in storytime and forget about Abby and simply focus on the puppet, like I would if I were horsing around with my brother and sister and puppets.  In those moments, something magical truly does happen.  I can see out of the corner of my eyes that the adults, as well as the kids, are transfixed and amused and caught up in the puppet performance.  The irony, of course, is that as soon as I am aware of the audience’s reaction – then I lose the moment.  It’s much like meditation:  you’ll be going along great, meditating really well, and then you realize, “Hey, I’m doing this meditation thing great today!  I’ve totally forgotten about everything else!!!”, and guess what?  You’re not meditating anymore.

But I’m hoping that with more practice I’ll reach that perfect level…puppet nirvana, maybe…and that I’ll be able to sustain my puppeteering for longer periods of time, while being truly conscious of the performance.  That would be awesome.  For now, I’m just happy that I’ve been using puppets more in the Mother Goose on the Loose Storytime.  Instead of using only stuffed animals for the song “When the [hen] gets up in the morning, she always says [cluck],” I’ve started using a rotating selection of puppets, too, and it’s been incredibly cool.  The stuffed animals are very cute, but also static.  The puppets, on the other hand, are animated and engaging: the moms who are chatting at the back of the room stop chatting, and the children who are getting wiggly stop wiggling.  Everyone looks at the goat puppet as I sing to him, and everyone maaas along with him, with some happy giggles here and there in the room.  Best of all are the Folkmanis stage puppets, which have truly malleable faces like Muppets; my favorite stage puppet is the horse, which has quarts of personality, but the lion and the sheep are a close second.

And all this thinking about puppets has inspired me to learn a story to tell with puppets for Thursday’s Preschool Storytime.  It’s not often that I have the time available to memorize a story to tell with puppets, but this week I’m going to make the time (at home, I’m afraid – there’s never the time to do this at work) and Thursday’s storytime is going to be fun.  Puppets rule!!