Kamishibai - “Paper Theatre”
- sbangs
- Jan 28
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 18
Our Young Carers Illustrations Project has produced beautiful and widely acclaimed picture books and an activity book by Ana Graça. We have distributed well over twenty thousand copies of these across all four nations in the UK. Ana’s books are now also available online in a variety of formats, including “Kamishibai” and, as with all of our products, these are free to anyone working to improve the lives of young carers.
Ana’s picture books tell stories about a six year old young carer called Honey and her friends..They have lots of adventures, including a trip to outer space and then, by magic, getting turned into bunny rabbits! Ana’s books have now also been adapted to be available in Kamishibai style and, through adaption of this format, are being disseminated online.
Kamishibai is a traditional Japanese storytelling method that involves using large picture cards. The term “Kamishibai” translates to “Paper Theatre” or “Paper Play” and the medium appears to have been developed by travelling storytellers in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. The format is particularly well-suited for storytelling in group settings and with younger children. Picture books work well for reading with individual children but less so in group settings.
Our Kamishibai picture books have now been produced in a variety of digital formats. One of these is designed to enable printing these as a sets of A3 cards. The idea is that the narrator tells the story without necessarily directly reading from the picture book and involves the children in discussion about what is happening throughout the telling of the tale.
The Kamishibai versions of the picture books are in the ideal shape to be presented via PowerPoint and this is enabling us to very simply make Ana‘s beautiful books available for presentations to school assemblies.Links to these are included here:
Young Carers in Space
Young Carers in Bunnyland
Digital copies of Kamishibai versions of our books for printing onto cards can be requested by emailing jbangsuk@icloud.com or via this website.
Wooden Kamishibai theatres can be purchased via Amazon or elsewhere online. However, it is also possible to undertake this type of storytelling by simply holding up the pictures printed out as large cards.
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