School Library Journal Review
| This collection features mostly original tales, starring the youngest member of the Bear family, Teddy Bear. The stories are a mix of gentle life lessons and family dramas, adaptations of traditional stories, and concept guessing games. The author includes scripts and directions for 20 stories, suggestions for additional books and activities, patterns for creating the characters and props (which are also on the CD-ROM), and theme and subject indexes. The best feature here is the recycling of the characters in each tale, so storytellers only have to fabricate these figures once. The selections have a lot of child appeal. The directions and patterns look basic and easy to use, but they do require some artistic ability and familiarity with flannel/magnetic board storytelling techniques. Yousha does not always include patterns for the Bear family's clothing, and it is difficult to figure out which pieces are required for which tale, since the patterns are grouped by category and not by story. While this title does not reach the quality or the breadth of Judy Sierra's The Flannel Storytelling Book (H. W. Wilson, 1997), it could supplement larger collections.-Rachel G. Payne, Brooklyn Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Booklist Review
| The author, a children's librarian and storyteller, has collected her original flannel-board stories featuring Teddy Bear and his family. Each chapter, organized by theme (such as self-esteem, shapes, colors, and cooperation), includes the characters and story pieces needed, directions on placing the pieces on the board, the story, related read-aloud books, and activities. Each chapter also includes a black-and-white picture of the storyboard itself. The book contains reproducible black-line patterns for all the stories with the recommended size and some optional embellishments. An accompanying CD contains the patterns, which makes them easier to reproduce and resize if necessary, as well as color reproductions of the flannel boards. Theme and subject indexes complete the work. Because the author gives directions on making the board and pieces, this would be especially useful to the novice storyteller.--Glantz, Shelley Copyright 2009 Booklist |
