“The Princess Who had No Kingdom” by Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb, “Rapunzel” by Sarah Gibb, “Beauty and the Beast” by Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb
When it comes to picture book fairytales one of my favorite illustrators is Sarah Gibbs. Her style is delicate, intricate, and lacy. I love all the tiny details she includes and I could just stare at her creations for hours.
Part of her style that is so mesmerizing is that some of her illustrations are done almost entirely in silhouettes while others contain of mixture of more traditional illustrations mixed with silhouettes. This brings a lot of added interest to young and old readers alike and makes turning each page a delight.
I must, of course, also mention that I love Ursula Jone’s writing in two of the books mentioned and am a big fan of hers as well. The two together make an excellent pair. “Rapunzel” and “Beauty and the Beast” are both wonderful retellings of the classic stories and “The Princess who had No Kindgom” (which is the book where the interior photos below are from) is actually pleasantly new to me. I tried looking it up to see if it was a traditional tale or not, but couldn’t find the information I was looking for. If you know, tell me in the comments because I am incredibly curious!
Click here to purchase “The Princess who had No Kingdom”, “Rapunzel”, & “Beauty and the Beast” *affiliate links
Fairytale Shadow Puppet Sets from Adventure in a Box
All of those gorgeous silhouettes in Sarah Gibbs illustrations had me thinking that shadow puppets would be perfect to pair with these books! Especially a set that included fairy tale figures, seeing as how these three books are fairytales of course. I was on the look-out for something special when I ran across the shadow puppets from Adventure in a Box. Bingo! They are exquisite and perfect for invoking hours of imaginative play and the most magical stories. They offer a bunch of different shadow puppet sets with everything from The Gingerbread Man to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The two sets I am sharing through photos in this post are their “Make-A-Fairytale” shadow puppet set and “Beauty and the Beast” fairytale set.
Both sets include puppets with amazing, cut-out details that let light shine through in the most detailed way to really make some whimsical shadows. They are cut from quality, heavyweight, black paper and come with some wooden dowels ready to be attached. When ours arrived I was so excited that I couldn’t get them assembled fast enough.
However, do you want to know something else about them that amazing? They also have the instructions for making your own shadow puppets along with downloadable designs for their sets that you can get for free from their blog! Isn’t that so nice of them! That way you have the option of either downloading the designs for free and making them yourself, or purchasing them pre-made for instant story-making joy. Either way you cannot go wrong. (Honestly and truly, I love their website and all that it has to offer.)
The Make-a-Fairy-Tale set is one of my favorites that they have listed because it allows so much room for the imagination. The characters and items they chose to include are iconic to so many fairy tales and would work well for retellings of traditional fairy tales such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, but would also work wonderfully for children to be creative with weaving their own tales. There are 12 characters included in this set and they are: “a prince/knight, a princess/fair maiden, a fairy (also doubles as a fairy godmother), a witch (good or bad, it’s up to you to decide!), a dragon, a beast/ogre, a king, and a frog. There are also silhouettes of a castle, a pumpkin, and a rose.”
The Beauty and the Beast set is their newest set and was just released in time for all the excitement for Disney’s live-action film version hitting theaters. How fun, right? I am particularly fond of it, as Beauty and the Beast is one of my personal favorite fairytales. My favorite detail is the rose that they included at the castle gate. (In the traditional story Beauty asks her father to bring her back a rose from his travels and he takes one from the Beasts castle, thus beginning the story.) It includes 8 puppets which are: “Beauty, Beast, Prince, Father, two Nasty Sisters, castle with a rose garden, and a rose.” You can check out their post on creating the set and what it includes HERE.
(all 8 of the puppets included in the Beauty and the Beast set)
Basically, my kiddos and I couldn’t be more pleased with these puppet sets from Adventure in a Box and we are so excited for all the stories that we have yet to create using them.
If you give this Beyond the Book activity a try I’d love to hear how it goes! Share it on Instagram using hashtag #beyondthebook (I’m on Instagram as @book.nerd.mommy) or even just comment here with your thoughts. It would make my day! Or to simply save for later pin the image below.
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