The Shadow Play
A free Mid-Autumn Festival coloring page. US Letter, portrait, ready to print.
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From the story “The Shadow Play” in Once Upon a Mid-Autumn Moon in Malaysia — eleven bedtime tales for ages 4–10, each with a word search and a coloring page of its own.
The smallest puppet
A white cloth screen glows in the dark, and behind it the dalang, the puppet master, holds up flat leather puppets so their shadows tell a story to soft chiming music. Little Aziz, the smallest boy in the crowd, has begun to think that small means unimportant. Then a giant blocks the great hero-puppet, and Sang Kancil, the tiny mouse-deer, puzzles the giant with a riddle until the path is clear.
The picture shows a wayang kulit show: a glowing white screen lit from behind, a dalang with flat leather puppets casting shadows, an audience in the dark, and the moon.
Wayang kulit and Sang Kancil
Wayang kulit is a traditional shadow-puppet theater of Malaysia, in which a dalang moves flat leather puppets behind a lamp-lit screen. Sang Kancil, the clever little mouse-deer, is a much-loved character in Malay folk tales. At the end the dalang tells Aziz, "The smallest puppet, and the cleverest."
Small and clever
- Aziz feels nobody notices someone as little as him. When have you felt that way?
- The giant sat down to think about a riddle and forgot to block the path. What riddle would you ask him?
- The dalang says everyone has a part to play in a good story. What would yours be?