When You Have a Bad Dream (The Giant on the Wall)

A children's bedtime story about bad dreams, inspired by the old shadow-puppet theatre of Java and Bali. Last night, Leo had a bad dream, and tonight he keeps finding reasons not to go up to bed. By the lamp in the front room, his grandpa tells him about an old shadow show from across the sea, a giant on a white sheet, and the girl who once stepped behind it. For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.About the tale: shadow-puppet theatre is real, and very old. In Java and Bali, in Indonesia, a puppeteer called a dalang has brought figures cut from leather to life as shadows on a lamplit screen for more than a thousand years, a tradition UNESCO honours as a masterpiece of human heritage. The giant and the little shadow-maker are our own, told in the spirit of that lamplit art.