Treasures

As I've mentioned before, the majority of books in our collection have come from donations. Many from churches and Christian groups in the US as far as I can tell. We have some great books...earlier this past year we found a fantastic (read: huge!) dictionary in our donation pile, which is used daily. We also found a set of almost new commentaries. Donated things are always interesting because they include a combination of treasure and junk. And sometimes it's hard to know which is which.

As we've been cataloging we are going through the collection book by book. And I have found a number of books that I find hilarious. I suppose in the right collection and at the right time, these particular books are not actually that funny. But I just couldn't help being amused by this recent find in our Church History section:

Interesting because this was actually given directly to
a church here in Kampala... I keep wondering how it
 ended up at RTC

Yes, that's right. Making Puppets Come Alive

"This book deals almost exclusively with hand puppets."

Puppets!

Ways to hold your puppet

This book prefers the 'Modern Method'.

The Modern Method

After explaining the basics of holding puppets, the book continues by giving lots of tips. How to make sure the Puppets are the correct heights, how to use puppets and props, suggested pantomime stories, and even how to practice voices:

Incorrect height in relation to each other.

Correct heights

How to make your puppet 'look around'.

Example picture of looking

Pantomime skit

Example of Pantomime 1

 

Example of Pantomime 2

"The Puppet's voice should match his size"

I seriously mean no disrespect toward people who do puppet-y things. I'm sure this book was originally geared toward church groups who put on puppets for kids and Sunday School. If anything this book gives me a lot of respect for the team that brought you Mister Roger's Neighborhood of Make-Believe. I just found this book such an interesting combination of funny, endearing, creepy, and interesting. It struck me as particularly interesting because finding materials to make puppets like these here would be particularly challenging and possibly expensive. 

But I suppose the reason I found it most amusing was because it was in our (pre-cataloged) Church History section. Puppet show about Martin Luther, anyone?