By Alana Moehring Mallard
Mother Goose was on the loose in several Austin libraries this month, a puppet show by the good folks at Austin Public Library’s Literature Live! project. Puppet masters Devo Carpenter and Karen Carlson took Mother Goose is on the Loose to Old Quarry branch library last week to a preschool crowd of about 75 kids and adults that howled at the nursery rhymes. Anne Minner is the children’s librarian at Old Quarry.
The little four-year-old with me wanted to know “where is Mother Goose” as kids followed along with Ms Devo and Ms Karen and we all acted out I’m a Little Teapot, Do you know the Muffin Man, Patty Cake Patty Cake Baker Man, and Pease Porridge Hot. And Jack Be Nimble was a huge favorite with everyone, what with the constant jumping over the candlestick.
When You Can’t Catch Me I’m the Gingerbread Man ran away and ran away from everything but that sneaky, gingerbread-eating wolf, the kids sang and danced and moved with Ms Devo and Ms Karen and knew just about all the words.
And there was plenty to entertain grownups in the crowd: one little pig calling the other two pigs “you bunch of bacon bits,” the wolf calling the three pigs “those piggly wigglies,” and some of the nursery rhymes done in Elvis fashion – that Ms Devo, she’s something.
But the star of the stories was truly Mother Goose, and she came out – staying close, close, close to Ms Karen – to Ms Devo rhyming, “Stories come and stories go; Stories circle around the globe; Stories high and stories low; This is how the stories go.”
Mother Goose and Ms. Karen posed for pictures with every kid, and she even let one little girl read a book to her – and Mother Goose only tried to eat the book half a dozen times.
The next Literature Live! presentation is in November – The Nutcracker. Ms. Devo and Ms. Karen and their friends will take The Nutcracker to every branch library in November.