The Shadow-Puppet Hero
A free Mid-Autumn Festival coloring page. US Letter, portrait, ready to print.
Download the PDF — freeNo email, no sign-up, no account. Print it as many times as you like, at home, in a classroom or in a library.
From the story “The Shadow-Puppet Hero” in Once Upon a Mid-Autumn Moon in Thailand — eleven bedtime tales for ages 4–10, each with a word search and a coloring page of its own.
The hero who knelt for a deer
On festival night a white cloth screen is stretched tight, and the village settles on mats to watch nang yai. Kan admires the hero prince, who faces a giant without a tremble, then stops mid-adventure to carry a lost shadow-deer home. Grandmother says a true hero is brave and kind at once, and on the walk back Kan turns a stranded beetle onto its feet.
The picture shows a nang yai show at night: a big white screen lit from behind, large leather puppets casting shadows, a village on mats, and the moon.
Nang yai, the grand shadow play
Nang yai is Thailand's grand shadow theater. Large leather puppets are held up before a lit screen, and the stories often come from the Ramakien, Thailand's old epic of heroes.
Brave and kind
- The prince stopped for a small deer. Who do you know who would do that?
- Kan might once have stepped over the beetle. What changed?
- If you were a puppet, what would your shadow look like?
A shadow show at home
Cut a simple animal from stiff paper, tape it to a stick, and hold it between a flashlight and a wall, lit from behind like the screen on the page.