Visual Storytelling: Fun Books and Shows

Westley loves electronics, they are easy, they are visual, they don’t demand conversation.

In addition to building on his narrative play, we’ve been trying to encourage Westley with the stories and shows he enjoys!

I have also noticed that he likes characters like himself….those who talk minimally.

Here’s the List (off the top of my head)

Books
1. Dinosaur’s Binkit by Sandra Boynton Review: Oh No! The Binkit is missing, its hard to look for things, esp. when you can’t tell anyone where you had it last

2. Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems Full Review Here: Lost Bunny, again frustrating (wonder how often this situation happens for my child that he wishes he can talk and he can’t)

3. Pete the Cat and His Brand New Shoes by James Dean and Eric Litwin Review: Going with the flow (which West does) the Cat keeps singing his groovy Song

4. Songs as Books/Nursery Rhymes: probably because the sound is still enjoyable even if you don’t get the words

5. Jack and the Beanstalk: Probably partially because big brother likes it, but also because you get to Stomp around yelling FEE! FIE! FO! FUM!

6. Beauty and the Beast (Disney) the Comic Book because a. we are familiar with the story b. lots and lots of pictures

Shows

1. Pingo: Penguins speaking another language? No problem, Westley gets it

2. Curious George: Curious and PHYSICAL little monkey gets into trouble, esp. when he misunderstands/has to guess at the grownups rules

3. Live 101 Dalmatians (I know, I like the original better, although Glen Close is AWESOME) a. there’s cute live dogs b. the dogs SHOW what they do instead of talking about it

4. The Nutcracker Ballet conceptualized by Maurice Sendek : Dancing, very little words (only a bit of narration), plus you can dance along! (I still can’t believe he’ll watch the close to two hrs)

5. The Cat in the Hat THEATER PLAY (note: not the movie). Rhyming words (which I think helps) and LOTS of PHYSICALITY, that is both easy and fun to copy

6. Most musicals, again because we can enjoy the music even when we don’t follow the plot, BUT there has to be enough music to stay interesting….

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword