Bonifacio in Summertime/L'été de Boniface

PreS-Gr 3—In the first animated short, originally voiced in French and dubbed in English, the trickster storyteller Bonifacio tries to con Queen Heloise into marrying him. He isn't after her heart though—just her family's secret about how to attain the golden apples that grow on a magical tree atop Mount Inaccessible. It looks like Bonifacio just might get away with his dastardly plan until Princess Molly and her woodland friends come to visit and reveal Bonifacio's true character. The second film tells the story of Poppety the grumpy hedgehog and his woodland friends. It's autumn in the forest, and Bonifacio, the storyteller, steals a unicorn horn. As punishment, all the stories in the kingdom disappear, and everyone becomes incredibly bored. The only way to reverse the punishment is to travel to the belly of the earth to return the horn. This is the final installment in the series, each of which features the woodland friends' adventures during a different season. Students will enjoy the 3-D puppet animation and the colorful, quirky forest setting. Purely for entertainment, there are no curricular correlations here.—Anne Bozievich, Friendship Elementary School, Glen Rock, PA