About The Great Big Book Adventure
The Great Big Book Adventure is an exciting new show from Bouncy Zebra Theatre that will get children excited about reading and encourage a love of books – that we hope will last a lifetime!
The Great Big Book Adventure is the story of George, a young bookworm!
George loves reading, and whenever he starts reading and using his imagination, his friend Rick turns up. Rick is a very special friend – because he can make all the things that George read about COME TRUE! This sometimes gets George into trouble, but Rick doesn’t care!
One day the evil (and quite boring) Bo Ring turns up! Bo wants to get rid of all the books in the village! What a terrible thing to do!
Bo goes about taking away all the reading materials in the village and turning George’s colourful world into a mundane shade of grey. And with nothing for George to read, Rick disappears!
There is only one thing for it! George has to turn to his new friends in the audience, so that they can write a book all together and enable Rick to come back and defeat Bo! And in the process make the world colourful once again!
An Interactive Experience
George’s world turns into a mundane shade of grey when evil Bo takes away all reading material from the village.
Running Time
The Great Big Book Adventure is a 45 to 50 minute performance that includes a 10-minute interactive story-writing exercise.
Cast
The cast for The Great Big Book Adventure is made up of two persons. On stage, Bouncy Zebra is working with a top team of actors and animators who have got vast experience in Theatre in Education.
Set
The Great Big Book Adventure is a very simple show to set up and can be performed almost anywhere! We will get our own free standing backdrop (235cm x 235 cm) and we do not require any audio-visual equipment.
Audience
The show is aimed at Year 4s and Year 5s. Older Year 3s and younger Year 6s might also enjoy the show. The show itself can be adapted to slightly younger/older audiences.
N.B. Please note that when being performed as part of the Culture Pass Programme, The Great Big Book Adventure cannot be performed to audiences of less than 40 students.
No Administrative Work For You
The new theatre show called The Great Big Book Adventure is available to be performed at your school, fully-subsidised, as part of the Arts Council Culture Pass programme.
And because we are committed to helping professional educators, we promise you that our project requires no administrative work on your part.
We NEED to get children reading!
According to 2022 European Commission country report on Malta, we are facing a reading crisis. When comparing local students with the EU 27 average, Malta has a higher percentage of low achievers in reading in both low and high socioeconomic status groups.
We need to get Maltese students more excited about reading.
We feel that by pitching a show at a young audience and making reading an exciting, fun activity we can contribute to creating a love of books in our audiences that we hope can last a life-time.
As well as the educational benefits, reading helps children’s wellbeing and develops imagination. Through The Great Big Book Adventure we are encouraging children to read, we are promoting reading choice, we are bringing reading to life and we are making reading an active (rather than passive) past-time. We want children to be exhilarated by books, to talk to their friends about books and to look forward to reading. And we feel that this show is a great springboard for that.
So it is more than a normal show?
It is loads more than just a normal show!
The Great Big Book Adventure features a mini story-writing workshop during the actual show which we hope will enthuse the students and leave them hungry for more! This means that every show we do will create a new unique story. This unique story will be written down, and left with our audience as a memento for them to remember the power of their own imagination. Which means no one show is ever like another!
Also, in collaboration with teaching professionals and parents, The Bouncy Zebra team have put together a teachers/resource pack that not only touches upon how our show fits in with the curriculum but also offers a number of story-writing exercises which we hope can be useful to teachers during post-show lessons.
Does it fit into the curriculum? You Bet!
Listening & Writing
Working in Groups
Giving Vivid Descriptions
Communicate Effectively
The Great Big Book Adventure touches upon a multitude of curricular themes in a fun, innovative way, particularly when it comes to the learning outcomes as mentioned in the national English Language curriculum for Years 4 & 5.
We feel that this is a very innovative way to explore themes such as listening, speaking, giving vivid descriptions, demonstrating understanding, contributing to a discussion, following instructions, expressing opinions and communicating effectively. All these themes are essential elements of the Year 4 / Year 5 English curriculums.
The show itself and the way that students interact with it – they are addressed a number of times by the characters and are brought on stage to be part of a number of scenes – also touches upon other elements of the curriculum in a fun way, elements such as role play and encouraging students to respond to a specific text.
Managing to come up with a story that wins the day will, we believe cause a feel-good factor in the students that we hope can be translated into a love of reading in every language.
Away from the English curriculum, we feel that the show fits in well with work being done in year 4 during PSCD – Intrapersonal and Interpersonal awareness, particularly teaching outcome 6 – working collaboratively in groups. All this whilst instilling a love of reading.
What evaluators said about our show
