{"product_id":"puppet-isbn-9781536239171","title":"Puppet","description":"\u003cb\u003eWriting in the tradition of \u003ci\u003ePinocchio, \u003c\/i\u003eHans Christian Anderson Award winner David Almond brings his ineffable touch to a warm and wistful story that shows anything is possible with imagination and trust.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“You’re a mystery, aren’t you, Puppet? But isn’t everything a mystery? Not just you, but every single thing that exists.”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat should a puppet master do when he’s old and alone and all his puppets are gone? Silvester decides to make one last puppet. But this one is different. When the old man speaks to him, Puppet speaks back. And then he starts to walk . . . While Silvester shows Puppet the town, the playground, and other wonders the world holds, Puppet in turn helps Silvester to make a new friend and share his puppet-making skills with the next generation. With themes of compassion and creativity, threaded with David Almond’s inimitable humor, this wonder-filled story of creation and the circle of life, illustrated with wordless black-and-white spreads by award-winning artist Lizzy Stewart, is destined to become a modern-day classic.In a sweet, tender exchange, an aging English puppeteer passes his vision on to a young kindred soul. . . . In keeping with the narrative’s measured lightness, Stewart’s fluid brush and line work lends warm informality. . . . A meditation on art and family, rich in language and feeling.\u003cbr\u003e—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe uncommonly kind story conjures a world teeming with magic and stories, and big subjects, including aging and death, are treated with deep respect and remarkable lightness. Wonderful wordless black-and-white illustrations occasionally take over narrative duties, and the overall effect is as cozy as a warm cup of tea. A gentle gem of a book that encourages readers to delight in their lives and the world around them.\u003cbr\u003e—Booklist (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDreamlike and thoughtful, this contemporary take on Pinocchio teems with a genuine sense of wonder. Utilizing a subtle, ambiguous magic to explain Puppet’s animation, Almond spins a gently introspective story that eschews overt conflict to meditate on the joys of creativity, artistry, and puppetry. Quirky, stylized illustrations by Stewart  add a balanced blend of whimsy and realism.\u003cbr\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe quiet celebration of life in all forms. . . is inspiring and makes the inevitably melancholy conclusion all that more meaningful. Stewart’s expressive black and white art adds significant emotion to the work, with some wordless sequential paneling progressing the story and a number of impactful full-page illustrations inviting readers to linger over the details.\u003cbr\u003e—The Bulletin\u003cb\u003eDavid Almond \u003c\/b\u003eis the highly acclaimed author of many award-winning novels for children, such as \u003ci\u003eThe Boy Who Swam with Piranhas\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eillustrated by Oliver Jeffers; \u003ci\u003eThe Tale of Angelino Brown\u003c\/i\u003e, illustrated by Alex R. Smith; \u003ci\u003eSkellig\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eClay\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eKit’s Wilderness\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eWar Is Over\u003c\/i\u003e, illustrated by David Litchfield; \u003ci\u003eThe Color of the Sun\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eBrand New Boy, \u003c\/i\u003eillustrated by Marta Altés. His numerous awards include the Carnegie Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international prize for children’s authors. David Almond lives in England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLizzy Stewart\u003c\/b\u003e has written and illustrated picture books for children, including \u003ci\u003eThere’s a Tiger in the Garden\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and World Illustration Award. She has also written and illustrated books for adults, including the graphic novel \u003ci\u003eAlison\u003c\/i\u003e. Lizzy Stewart lives and works in London.\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSilvester woke from his dreams. He climbed the steep stairs to his attic. He hadn’t been up here for years. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. There was nighttime traffic, not too far away. The moon shone brightly through the window to the sky.\u003cbr\u003e   There were posters on the walls from ancient times. Posters that told of performances by Silvester’s Magical Puppet Theatre all around the globe.\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester was the puppet master who hadn’t put on a puppet show for years, who thought he’d been forgotten by the world. But in the past few weeks, everything had begun to change.\u003cbr\u003e   He sat down at his workbench, brushed away some dust, and cleared the cobwebs. He switched on the little lamp there and sat for a while, his hands in its pool of light.\u003cbr\u003e   He seemed to be thinking hard, or maybe he was still dreaming.\u003cbr\u003e   On the workbench, bits of puppet lay in the dust. There was a box of half-made upper legs and lower legs, a box of half-made arms. Bits of wood that had turned into nothing yet. Dark wood, pale wood, heavy wood, light wood. Half-carved hands, a few misshapen feet. Lumpy torsos, skinny torsos. A few unfinished heads dangled on strings from the ceiling. There were old tubes of paint and pots of glue. Tweezers and needles and drills and bits of sandpaper and tiny saws. Curls of wire and lengths of string. A box full of clothes.\u003cbr\u003e   Just bits and pieces. Fragments.\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester sighed. How wonderful to be among these things again, to be in his attic again, to be at his bench again.\u003cbr\u003e   It was like coming to life again.\u003cbr\u003e   Spiders spun on strings in the moonlight and woodlice crawled over the bench. Down by the skirting board, a little mouse squeaked.\u003cbr\u003e   “Hello, spiders,” said Silvester. “Hello, woodlice. Hello, little mouse.” He let a spider run across his hand, and he smiled at the tiny tickling it made.\u003cbr\u003e   “Hello, owl,” he said to the owl that hooted outside once more.\u003cbr\u003e   Somewhere a baby started to cry and then was calmed again.\u003cbr\u003e   “Night-night,” Silvester whispered. “Sweet dreams, little one.”\u003cbr\u003e   He stared into the moonlight, then set to work.\u003cbr\u003e   He used thin wire and tweezers to put together a leg and then another leg. One was longer than the other; one had a very wobbly knee joint. One was dark wood; one was light. He added feet: one with a black boot, one with a brown. He found a pair of arms, one of them with powerful-looking muscles. One hand had the full four fingers, the other only three. He found a skinny torso and wired the arms and legs to it. He took one of the dangling heads from its string. It was pine wood, yellowy brown. He attached it to the body.\u003cbr\u003e   His hands moved swiftly.\u003cbr\u003e   “Be brave,” he whispered to himself. “Be as good as you ever were.”\u003cbr\u003e   He laughed at the puppet taking shape in his hands.\u003cbr\u003e   “What a funny-looking thing you are!” he said.\u003cbr\u003e   He sandpapered its cheeks, then waxed them. He colored its eyes green. He glued a few strands of black wool to the head for hair. Much tidier!\u003cbr\u003e   He stared into its eyes.\u003cbr\u003e   “Hello, Puppet,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e   Inside him, memories were moving. He had made his first puppets long, long ago, when he was just a little boy, living just a few streets away. He made them from clothes pegs and ribbons, from sticks and stones, from folded paper, from buttons and thread.\u003cbr\u003e   He used to give them names and make them move, and he had conversations with them. He used to make up stories where the puppets flew to the moon or battled with dragons or travelled through time.\u003cbr\u003e   He used to take them to his mam and say, “Look at the thing I made, Mam!” He made them talk to her.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003e “Hello, madam,”\u003c\/i\u003e they said if they were being polite.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e  “Hello, you nitwit!”\u003c\/i\u003e if they weren’t.\u003cbr\u003e   Mam would join in. She’d pretend to be delighted or mortally offended. And she’d always say, “Silvester, what a clever lad you are!”\u003cbr\u003e   He smiled to imagine himself as a boy again, to hear her voice again.\u003cbr\u003e   “Was it really so long ago?” he whispered to himself.\u003cbr\u003e   He took a green shirt and a pair of brown trousers from the box of clothes, and he dressed the puppet. He put a little brown cap on its head.\u003cbr\u003e   He held the puppet up before him. It was as tall as a young child.\u003cbr\u003e   He held the puppet’s arms out wide.\u003cbr\u003e   “I wonder,” he said, “what strange kind of story you might be in?”\u003cbr\u003e   He moved the puppet back and forth across the bench.\u003cbr\u003e   He made it march; he made it leap; he made it fly.\u003cbr\u003e   He made it roar as if it were angry or wild.\u003cbr\u003e   He made it sing and giggle and laugh.\u003cbr\u003e   “A very serious story,” he said in a very serious voice.\u003cbr\u003e   “A very silly story,” he said in a very silly voice.\u003cbr\u003e   “Maybe a tale where you fall in love,” he said, “or a tale filled with perilous adventures. Or maybe you’ll fly to Mars, or get eaten by tigers, or . . .”\u003cbr\u003e   He laughed and laughed to himself.\u003cbr\u003e   How wonderful it was to be making a puppet.\u003cbr\u003e   He looked into the puppet’s eyes again. “Hello, Puppet,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e   And the puppet said, “E-O.”\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester stared.\u003cbr\u003e   Puppet stared back at him with green eyes that were flat and empty.\u003cbr\u003e   Ah, it was just a dream. It had to be.\u003cbr\u003e   “Hello,” Silvester said again.\u003cbr\u003e   No answer.\u003cbr\u003e   “Silly Silvester,” he said to himself.\u003cbr\u003e   He laid the puppet in the dust and gently touched its cheek. He yawned. It was very late. Time to sleep.\u003cbr\u003e   “Night-night,” he whispered. “See you in the morning.”\u003cbr\u003e   He switched off the light and went back down the steep stairs.\u003cbr\u003e   Yes, he needed to sleep.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e2\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The past weeks had been rather busy, rather strange. It started with a letter from a museum. It seemed Silvester hadn’t been forgotten after all. They wanted to make an exhibition of his work. His puppets, his costumes, and his stages would be displayed for all the world to see. And of course Silvester said yes. He’d be so proud to have his work on display forevermore. So it was all arranged. And one morning when Silvester was in his kitchen having breakfast, there came a knock at the door.\u003cbr\u003e   Two men were standing there.\u003cbr\u003e   “Hello, Silvester,” said one. “My name is Francis, and this is Sol. I think you’re expecting us.”\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester smiled and stepped aside and welcomed them in.\u003cbr\u003e   Francis and Sol had a load of boxes and bags and packing cases and labels. They hauled them inside.\u003cbr\u003e   “You’re hard to find!” said Sol. “I didn’t even know this lane existed.”\u003cbr\u003e   Then he stood dead still and gasped in amazement.\u003cbr\u003e   “Goodness gracious me!” said Francis.\u003cbr\u003e   There it all was, spread around the living room, the remnants of Silvester’s Magical Puppet Theatre. There were dozens of puppets, some of them as big as a child, some no bigger than a toddler’s hand, some as small as a finger. They were lying on the sofa and sitting on the chairs. They hung on strings from the walls. There were kings and queens and witches and wizards and ghosts and demons and wide-eyed little girls and boys. Animals and dragons and monsters and fairies.\u003cbr\u003e   Scenery and costumes and curtains were laid out on the furniture and spread out across the carpet.\u003cbr\u003e   “A lifetime’s work,” Silvester said.\u003cbr\u003e   For a time, the men from the museum just looked at these things in wonder.\u003cbr\u003e   When they set to work, they were nervous, and Silvester saw that they were worried about how he was feeling.\u003cbr\u003e   “It’s all right,” he told them gently. “Do what you have to do.”\u003cbr\u003e   The men relaxed, but they were careful and gentle with everything. They kept saying how beautiful it all was, how wonderfully well made.\u003cbr\u003e   “I saw you,” said Sol. “I saw your show.”\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester smiled. “You did?”\u003cbr\u003e   “Yes. When I was a boy. You came to our school in South Shields. It was . . .” He suddenly reached out and lifted a particular puppet and laughed out loud. “And \u003ci\u003ehe \u003c\/i\u003ewas in it!” he exclaimed. “It was a play about the dark, dark forest!”\u003cbr\u003e   “Aha!” said Silvester. “How wonderful! This is Jack, and that was one of his very best shows.”\u003cbr\u003e   “It was \u003ci\u003efantastic\u003c\/i\u003e! I remember him tiptoeing deeper and deeper into the dark!”\u003cbr\u003e   “And do you remember how he ended up?” asked Silvester.\u003cbr\u003e   Sol chewed his lips and closed his eyes and remembered.\u003cbr\u003e   “Yes! Oh heck, the wolf got him. The wolf got you, Jack! You were eaten up by the \u003ci\u003ewolf\u003c\/i\u003e!”\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester nodded. “That’s right! But he came back out again, didn’t he?”\u003cbr\u003e   “Yes,” said Sol. “I was just a little boy—I was scared stiff! You came back out again, Jack, and I laughed my head off!” He held the puppet up before his eyes. “Hello again, Jack,” he said. “Remember me?”\u003cbr\u003e   The puppet said nothing, of course.\u003cbr\u003e   “I really believed you got eaten up!” Sol said. “I saw it happen! The wolf got you, its jaws opened . . . and gulp! Down you went.”\u003cbr\u003e   He mimed being the wolf. He mimed eating up Jack.\u003cbr\u003e   “How on earth did you \u003ci\u003edo \u003c\/i\u003eit?” he asked Silvester.\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester laughed and shrugged. “Years of practice.”\u003cbr\u003e   “It was magic,” Sol told him. “It was like the puppets were really \u003ci\u003ealive\u003c\/i\u003e!”\u003cbr\u003e   Silvester smiled again. “That’s what everyone said. Magic. But it was just hard work and clever tricks.”\u003cbr\u003e   He touched Jack’s wooden brow. “Everybody wanted it to be real, didn’t they, Jack?” he said softly. “That’s what made it easy to fool them.”\u003cbr\u003e   “I guess that’s right,” said Sol. He started to wrap Jack in tissue paper. “Sorry, Jack,” he whispered. “Got to be done.”\u003cbr\u003e   “Goodbye, my friend,” said Silvester. “Thanks for all the shivers and the laughs. See you in the museum.”\u003cbr\u003e   Sol laid Jack in his box.\u003cbr\u003e   He carefully wrapped more puppets. He handled them tenderly, as if each one were alive.\u003cbr\u003e   “Goodbye, my friend,” whispered Silvester to each and every one. “Thank you, old pal.”\u003cbr\u003e   “No kids to pass it all on to?” asked Francis.\u003cbr\u003e   “Sorry?” said Silvester.\u003cbr\u003e   “You’ve got no children to take over the puppet theatre?”\u003cbr\u003e   “Ah, no.” Silvester shook his head. “There was just me and my Belinda, and now she’s gone.” He pointed to a photograph on the wall. “There she is,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e   And there she was, his wife, looking at them, smiling at them from years ago when she was young.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Francis and Sol stayed all day.\u003cbr\u003e   They put the puppets into their boxes.\u003cbr\u003e   They folded costumes and slipped them into bags.\u003cbr\u003e   They wrapped sheets of scenery in Bubble Wrap.\u003cbr\u003e   They folded curtains and laid them into cases.\u003cbr\u003e   Everything was carefully labelled.\u003cbr\u003e   Much of it was worse for wear, faded, snapped, cracked.\u003cbr\u003e   Francis said there were experts at the museum who would clean and restore what they could. But Silvester also heard him whisper to Sol that some of it might just have to be chucked away.\u003cbr\u003e   When everything was packed up, they left Silvester on his own again.\u003cbr\u003e   They said they’d be back with their van later in the week.","brand":"Candlewick","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299950219493,"sku":"NP9781536239171","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781536239171_e7604b09-a321-4a27-85c6-fd237f076d8d.jpg?v=1767735219","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/puppet-isbn-9781536239171","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}