The Terrible Plop

Here is the story
Of the Terrible PLOP,
With a bear and a rabbit
And a hop hop hop.

But what is the PLOP?
And where does it hide?
Open the book
And look inside . . .

From award-winning author Ursula Dubosarsky and illustrator Andrew Joyner comes an irresistible new picture book about a little rabbit who learns that some things in life aren't as scary as they seem. Based on a Tibetan myth, a sound in the forest sets all the animals running for their lives from the Terrible Plop. Children will be charmed by the wonderful zany energy of the illustrations and the rollicking rhyming story.

Picture Book to Performance

The Terrible Plop has been selected as the 2009 book for the Picture Book to Performance project.

The Little Big Book Club & Windmill Performing Arts established this unique three year partnership in 2005.

Through this partnership, an unpublished manuscript suitable for one to four year olds is selected by a committee of early childhood specialists. The manuscript is simultaneously developed as a picture book, online book with multilingual narrations available on The Little Big Book Club's website and a theatrical production by Windmill.

The focus of the project is to engage parents and very young children in exploring the various forms of literacy including text, visual, performance, music and multimedia in the context of play and discovery.

In 2007, the chosen manuscript was Cat by Mike Dumbleton and Craig Smith with Boom Bah!, by Phil Cummings and Nina Rycroft, the next in the Picture Book to Performance series in 2008. Both of these books are available online on this site.

The premiere of the theatrical production in Adelaide on 18 May as part of the Come Out Festival.

Plop - The theatrical production

A chocolate cake loving bunny and a scary bear with a penchant for sunbathing go on an action-packed stampede through the animal kingdom.

Featuring rhyme, funky tunes, quirky puppetry and vibrant, furry design - this is a tale of true bravery when the smallest and most frightened creature of all summons up some rabbit courage to confront the terrible PLOP.

Specially crafted to provide our preschool audiences with intimate and non-threatening first theatrical experiences, Plop! explores the fear of unknown things that sometimes aren't so scary after all.

For more details on the production, click here.