Thursday, January 7, 2010

Finger Puppet Fun: Manhattan Toy

Manhattan Toy has a few finger puppet sets with fairy tale themes. Alas, my favorite set by them is now out of production as well as a few others, but three of the sets are still readily available.


Cinderella This set is fine, but I always feel the need for more characters with this one and have supplemented it with puppets from other sets when I've used it so I can have two ugly stepsisters along with the stepmother provided here.


Three Little Pigs I like that the pigs hold their building materials in their hands in this one. Clever.


Little Red Riding Hood I like this set since it gives us two versions of the wolf and leaves out the woodcutter. With the set limited to four characters, I think this was a great choice.

Is anyone surprised that these are the ones still in production? No, me neither.

My favorite, you ask? The Three Billy Goats Gruff. This tale works well with finger puppets and the set was quite adorable. I also appreciated that the middle goat was a sister with the oldest and youngest as brothers. It brought some fun dimension to the tale. And, yes, they are out of production, but you may be able to find them somewhere online.

The company also produced Jack and the Beanstalk and Hansel and Gretel once upon a time, but they have been retired, too.

2 comments:

  1. I think that finger puppets are such a great invent. It is able to amuse children for hours and hours. The Manhattan Toy is one of the best toys stores I have been at.

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  2. Finger puppets is one of the best way to tell a story in front of children. Even if you're alone telling it you can have five different puppets playing their part at the same time or even more.

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