NORTHRIDGE : Puppets Help Make the Point for Tolerance

The children fidgeted a bit in their squeaky auditorium seats until Leslie showed up. A 10-year-old with arthritis, Leslie stood and faced the questions of curious grade-schoolers without embarrassment. Even the boldest questions can’t hurt the feelings of felt and yarn.

One of the puppets of Kids on the Block, Leslie and her trunkful of companions, manned by the Volunteer League of the San Fernando Valley, came to the Balboa Boulevard Magnet School in Northridge last week to perform and answer questions about their disabilities.

The puppets were born in 1975 when a Maryland boy with cerebral palsy was mocked by new classmates. Using a handmade puppet, sporting red hair like the student, a teacher performed for the class, explaining cerebral palsy and showing that the boy was really much like them.

“What we are trying to get across is, even though we look different, everybody underneath is the same,” said Marcia Jones of Hidden Hills, who has been a puppeteer with the Valley group for eight years.

Besides the puppets with disabilities, the organization also has puppets depicting gang members that are used in performances for older children.

“Are you sick or something?” a puppet named Mel asked her new neighbor, Mark, who had just rolled onto the tabletop stage in a wheelchair, his red yarn hair sticking out of a white helmet.

“I’m not sick. I have cerebral palsy,” Mark replied in a slurred voice. “The kind I have means I can’t walk and I can’t talk too good, either.”

The wheelie-popping puppet wasn’t asking for sympathy.

“I bet there are a lot of things you can’t do that other kids can do,” Mel said.

“There are a hundred million things I can do,” Mark replied from the wheelchair he calls his “souped-up, super-sport and faster-than-a-speeding-bullet cruiser.”

“Do you want to play like we’re on the Oprah Winfrey show?” Mel asked. “Maybe some of these kids have questions.”

And the barrage began: “How do you get from your wheelchair to your bed?” “Um, how does it feel to be in a wheel . . . , um, your cruiser?” “Don’t you ever get cramps from sitting down so long?” “What is that thing on your head?”

And: “Don’t people make fun of you?”

“Some people make fun and point and whisper,” Mark said. “That really hurts my feelings because they don’t know what a really cool guy I am.”