Photo: Longhorndave

Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray, illustrated by Garry Parsons is both a wonderful celebration of the power of imagination and a warning to parents who do not take their children’s creativity seriously!

All Billy wants for his birthday is a bucket. Not a bike or a computer game. Just a bucket. His parents try unsuccessfully to persuade Billy otherwise but eventually a trip to Buckets-R-Us takes place. Billy returns home utterly delighted. He fills his bucket with water and so begin hours of play.

Every time Billy peers into his bucket he sees different watery worlds – crabs, sharks, divers, perhaps even a mermaid play in the water, and Billy is mesmerised by it all. His parents, on the other hand, are dismissive. They start off by humouring Billy (“What’s in your bucket now, Billy?” giggled his mum. “Seven sea lions and a walrus,” said Billy. “Of course there are, Billy,” laughed his mum and dad.) but soon they can’t resist teasing him a little; they try to persuade Billy to lend them his bucket so that they can use it for some household chores. Billy refuses. He loves his bucket and the worlds it contains. Indeed he goes to bed that night very happy – his bucket is “the best present in the world.”

The following morning Billy comes down to the kitchen to find his bucket missing. Although distraught it is Billy who ends up having the last laugh – it turns out his Dad borrowed the bucket to wash the car…and, well, let’s just say Billy’s Dad is now left looking somewhat foolish for not believing in Billy and the power of his imagination.

Please try to find a copy of Billy’s Bucket – the story is a fantastic testament to the power of imagination and a gentle reminder to those of us who might at times be far too sensible to believe in a little bit of magic. Kids will love it that Billy was proved right – there were, after all, marvellous sea creatures in his bucket, and parents will share a wry smile of recognition at the behaviour of Billy’s Mum and Dad. I also love the story for its delight in a simple birthday gift – a bucket – not a Wii or a trip to Disneyland – and in this respect it reminds me of Katie Cleminson’s Box of Tricks (which I reviewed here). Another book which could work well along side Billy’s Bucket is Polly Dunbar’s Penguin (which I reviewed here). All three are lovely birthday-themed books which rejoice in a child’s ability to imagine and create personal narratives.

The illustrations in Billy’s Bucket are bold and bright – J particularly enjoyed them. And whilst I don’t think they have the artistic flair of Katie Cleminson’s or Polly Dunbar’s illustrations they are nevertheless great fun to look at and an important part of why this book can hold the attention of both M (5) and J (1) at the same time.

To go with Billy’s Bucket we made our own buckets filled with sea creatures – but these were no ordinary buckets – their contents became our pudding one evening….

We used:

M made the gelatin as per the instructions on the packet, and simply added some blue food colouring for the “water” to go in the “buckets”. Jelly/Jello might work just as well, if you can get it in a blue colour . Once prepared, M poured the blue gelatin into the buckets where we left it to set for about an hour – just enough time for the gelatin to start firming up, but not for it to become too firm.

M then used a fork to push the sealife sweets into the water. Because the gelatin was already partly set the sea creatures appeared to float in the water and not sink all the way to the bottom.

Once the buckets were full of sea water and sea creatures they were left in the fridge to fully set.

Am I really showing you a photo of the inside of my fridge?? This is not at all what I anticipated when I started blogging…

Here’s our final collection of buckets full of wriggly sea life:

Here are the girls enjoying their buckets after dinner!

Billy’s Bucket:*** (3 stars)

And here’s the music we’ve been enjoying alongside Billy’s Bucket:

And just to show that some of my music is a little bit more up to date than the trio above we’ve also been listening to Ocean Night Song by Laura Veirs!

Other crafty activities which could work well alongside Billy’s Bucket include:

This week whales have been in the news here with one found swimming in the River Clyde in central Glasgow, a place very dear to me, and another’s dead body being washed up in Dorset. Thus it was inevitable that a whale activity was requested and this is what we came up with – our own family pod of spouting (blowing) whales!

What you’ll need:

1. Paint your bags in the colours you’ve chosen. We found it easiest to do this by placing a bag over a box or jar so that it stood upright by itself whilst we painted all over.

2. Once your bags are all dry, stuff them with scrunched up newspaper or other recycled filling. You want each bag to be about three-quarters full.

3. Scrunch the open end of the bag together and use a little sellotape to seal. You’ve now made the whale’s tail and body.

4. Add eyes and mouth by gluing on the googly/card eyes and mouth.

5. Use something sharp eg scissors or a knife to punch a hole in the middle of the top side of the whale’s body. Don’t make this hole too wide.

6. Take a length of film or paper and roll it up (we used a piece the entire width of the roll of film by about 60 cm and once it was rolled up we cut this into 3). You may wish to use a little sellotape to stop the film unravelling. Using scissors, cut slits down the sides of the rolled up paper, pull up from the centre a little and separate out the fronds.

7. Insert your frondy film/paper into the hole on the top of the whale’s head and ta-da! you have your own spouting whale. Please provide the whale with a nice deep pond to swim in

As fan’s of Julia Donaldson’s The Snail and the Whale we spent ages looking for a snail shell to glue onto a whale’s tail but to my disbelief we couldn’t find one anywhere! Maybe you’ll have better luck.

With our whale making activities we have of course been re-reading the said Snail and the Whale, but actually our current favourite whale book is Whale by David Lucas.

One stormy morning Joe is woken by a huge crash. The tempestuous wind and waves have washed a giant blue whale right into the seaside town where Joe lives, causing much damage and destruction. Joe, the mayor and all the townsfolk climb on top of the whale and discuss what is to be done. Joe does not think the idea of turning the whale into fish pie is a good one, but cannot immediately come up with an alternative solution to the situation. Fortunately the Owl who lived in the town’s clock tower buys the whale some time by going to ask the wind what he thinks should be done. The whale gets a further stay of execution when:

At last the Owl returned.
“I have spoken to the Wind,” he said.
“The Wind has gone to speak to the Sun.
The Sun will want to speak to the Moon.
The moon will want to speak to the Innumerable Stars.
The Innumerable Stars will, no doubt, want to talk it over amongst themselves.”
“Then we must wait,” said Joe.

And so they waited.

After waiting through the day and night, an answer finally comes back from the Innumerable Stars: the townsfolk must sing. This proposal is met with some incredulity, but when Joe starts singing The Rain Song, the inhabitants of the town join in one by one, eventually being joined in chorus by the whale himself.

And for once, The Rain Song works and the heavens open. In the flood waters the whale is able to float away from the town, but now the problem is that all the townsfolk are stuck on top of the whale floating out in the bay. In an attempt to solve this newly created problem the Whale “began to drink. He drank and drank until the land appeared“. But when the townsfolk go ashore they find their homes ruined. What now? The people hear the Whale singing, and as is oh-so true, the whale song is quite magical, and before long the town is being repaired by every kind of sea creature, all of whom have come ashore with shells and bright pebbles and pearls to make “the town more beautiful than ever before.” The townsfolk, and Joe, are delighted – out of disaster something far more wonderful than what went before has been born.

M and I love the fairytale character of this story – the magical abilities of the whale, the wise old owl, the Innumerable Stars, and the illustrations are just gorgeous; full of beautiful detail yet unfussy, with lots of colour and (metaphorical) sparkle.

Whale: And yes, you could win this wonderful book in the giveaway!

Whilst we were making our whales we listened to some great music:
The Greenland Whale Fishery, a traditional song here sung by the Watersons although many different versions exist, The Whale Song by Hoagy Carmichael, Blue Whale, Blue Whale by Twin Sisters Production, and Standing On A Whale by Paul Borgese And The Strawberry Traffic Jam.

We’ve also got our eye on a few more whale activities:

Another spouting whale from The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. There are lots of great crafty ideas on this blog

I also love these whale lolly molds from Bake It Pretty, which I’m pleased to say does ship worldwide, these cuddly whales from etsy seller Woolywotnots, this amigurumi whale from PlanetJune, and this whale pincushion from Confessions of a blueberry bandit.

Whales seem to inspire a lot of creativity! Do you have a favourite whale craft, book or song? If so, please do let us know about it.