Why Storytellers Lie (article link)

Why Storytellers Lie, an Atlantic Monthly piece by Maura Kelly, highlights a new book by Jonathan Gotschall, called The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. The article addresses some of the main reasons why we might tell stories: for courtship, for instruction, and for a sense of higher purpose. Kelly writes, "We like stories because, as Gotschall puts it, we are 'addicted to meaning'—and meaning is not always the same as the truth."

How I spent (the first part of) my summer vacation

Go to Sleep, Gecko! a Balinese folktale retold by Margaret Read MacDonald, has a message that is oft-quoted in our house: "Some things you just have to put up with." I heard geckos for the first time this past week when I was in the Florida Keys for a wedding. I smiled when I heard them. However, I was not smiling when I attempted my daily walk, only to come home with scores of mosquito bites. Geckos eat mosquitoes, but the mosquitoes ate me. I got some relief when we sailed out on a pontoon to arrive at a sandbar:



What you don't see in this photo: dolphins, tiny starfish, intricate coral, stingrays, herons, and fish that dive out of the water.

While we were in the Keys, we visited the Hemingway Home and Museum. Bede, Lucia, and I enjoyed exploring the grounds of Ernest Hemingway's last residence. Bede and I were comforted to learn that this was the only residence where Hemingway had his own separate writing space (in other words: No Whining about our lack of writing space!). I read a lot of Hemingway between college and graduate school, and while I didn't care for his novels besides For Whom the Bell Tolls (The Old Man and the Sea was a novella, and well worth the fuss), I enjoyed many of his short stories. A Movable Feast is a favorite too, though one has to keep in mind that Hemingway did not write that memoir with a critical eye. It's fun to read for all of the name-dropping.

A piece of mosaic at the Hemingway house:



I have jetlag. Like Gecko, I'm going to Go to Sleep.

Peace and Quiet-- A Felt Board Story

Why has it taken me so long to acquire a copy of Judy Sierra's The Flannel Board Storytelling Book? Her stories are easy to tell and the felt-board pattern pieces are distinct. After borrowing the library's copy, I ordered a used copy for my own collection.

I recently used patterns for a Eastern European Yiddish folktale called "Peace and Quiet," which follows the same plot-line as Margot Zecmach's It Could Always Be Worse. In "Peace and Quiet," the rabbi's role is played by a wise woman, and the harried protagonist is a farmer who lives alone but cannot get any sleep due to the creakiness of his house. I simplified the pattern pieces, used thread instead of glue, and opted for imagination instead of cutting out a felt house. I acknowlege that goats generally are not green and cows are not pink.

Here's what I came up with:


The farmer consults the wise woman


The harried farmer tries to get some sleep

I try to use craft felt as much as possible because pure wool felt is expensive and I need to save it for my dolls. Craft felt can be found at many hobby stores as well as textile shops.

The Magic Onions: a guest blog post

I wrote a guest blog post on storytelling as part of the "Discovering Waldorf" series in The Magic Onions. You may find it here: Discovering Waldorf- Storytelling.


Spring themed storytelling dolls on a nature display

Storytelling in the Bathtub

This blog post was written for Share a Story, Shape a Future's Blog Literacy Tour 2010 and is part of day two of the tour by The Book Chook. Here is the roundup of posts: Literacy My Way.

Storytelling in the Bathtub; Practical Aspects of Family Storytelling

Once upon a time, when my daughter was three years old, she hated to have her hair washed. I understood her vulnerability. A certain amount of trust must be in place in order to allow an adult to tip the child’s head back, pour the water on the hair and keep the water off of the face. Despite the presence of the washcloth, water inevitably trickles into the eyes. As my daughter shrieked that she didn’t want her hair washed, I said, “Have I ever told you about Pepper’s eleven brothers and sisters?”

My daughter stopped yelling. Pepper was my daughter’s beloved little Playmobil princess who shared her interests and fears, but before that moment, she hadn’t known about Pepper’s family. The Twelve Dancing Princesses was my inspiration for the number of siblings, and as I began to wash my daughter’s hair, I gave them plant names: Carnation, Jonquil, Heliotrope, Johnny-Jump-Up, Violet, and so on. In subsequent baths, I told my daughter about the day they all decided to go on a picnic, what they brought with them, who they met along the way, and what they played when they got there. As I told the story, I didn’t try to create an intricate plot, but I took some inspiration from the book Picnic by Emily Arnold McCully. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because I wrote about it three years ago and included a bed-time story as well in the post Three Wishes and One Too Many Shaggy Dogs.

Public storytelling performance is different from family storytelling. When I tell stories for an audience in a bookstore or library, I make sure I know my stories thoroughly and provide proper attribution. Some storytellers are able to make up stories spontaneously for an audience. I am not one of them, but I do know that my colleagues’ spontaneity is possible because of the abundance of stories they already know.

When I do family storytelling, I draw inspiration from Western folktales like those collected by the Brothers Grimm (Germany) and Joseph Jacobs (Great Britain) because I know that I will not be infringing upon another culture’s sacred stories. Certain motifs in those stories by Grimm and Jacobs are probably already familiar to you: a journey, a series of events that happen in threes, a smattering of magic, a symbolic challenge to deal with. I often used my daughter's character of Pepper in stories to help my daughter work through her own struggles from swings and slides to dogs and sirens. Over the years, I've employed other characters meaningful to her.

Two in-print books I recommend are:
Bringing the Story Home: The Complete Guide to Storytelling for Parents, by Lisa Lipkin

A Parent's Guide to Storytelling: How to Make Up New Stories and Retell Old Favorites, by Margaret Read MacDonald

If you are inclined toward folktales, here is a link to help you with the inspiration for your stories: Sur La Lune.

Five Year Celebration and a Giveaway

[Note to those reading this in RSS readers: this is the real blog post.]

Five years ago, I started a storytelling blog. My daughter was not yet two years old and I was still working as a children's librarian on a substitute basis. I had as a goal for that year to learn guitar or sewing, and surprised everyone (most of all myself) when I started lessons for both. Throughout the years, I've learned to know new people through blogging and have even got to meet some of them. Relationships with old friends with whom I'd been out of touch as well as acquaintances who've became good friends have been possible because of blogging.

I'm thankful for all of you. Today's celebration is in thanks for your friendship. I am hosting a giveaway of a doll I made especially for this day: an Astronomy Magus to aid you in storytelling or inspire you as you work.

The doll is made with hand-dyed dark blue wool felt and embroidered with blue and white stitches. To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post with a reflection on one or more of the following items:

1. A description of a beloved story from your childhood that you have not yet located. Be as specific as possible, and someone might be able to find the information to reunite you with that story.

2. A song you really enjoy that you don't think a lot of people know. Please provide a verse or two.

3. A scenario of a book you would love to read that to the best of your knowledge has not been written. Only share the story idea if you're not planning to write it yourself!

4. Explain quantum theory as if it were a story.

I will need to be able to contact the recipient of the Astronomy Magus, either through an email address found on your blog/website profile or through a private email you sent directly to me at: saintsandspinners [at] gmail [dot] com. If you send me a private email, please be assured that I will not use your address for any purpose but this giveaway.

"Why an Astronomy Magus?" you might ask. Some of you know how much I love outer space. The science-fiction I enjoy most has to do with interplanetary travel. You might not have been aware that when Carl Sagan says, "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be," my soul leaps with joy, but you've probably suspected that I watched every episode of the new Battlestar Galactica series. It is my hope that when I bring my first book-length story to completion, it will incorporate stories, songs and textiles into a science-fiction genre. That is why the Astronomy Magus is my gift.

The drawing for the Astronomy Magus ends Friday, February 26, at 6 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. You may comment multiple times, but each name will be entered only once. Parents and siblings of the House of Glee plus Brad the Gorilla are welcome to comment but will not be eligible for the drawing.

Bill Harley in Washington State

I'm so pleased that musical storyteller Bill Harley is coming to this part of the country. On Saturday, February 20, Harley will play a free concert at the Hilton Hotel in Bellevue, Washington as part of the 2010 Pacific Northwest District Assembly. I first heard Harley tell stories at King County Library System's StoryFest in August 2000. I remember thinking, "That's great that he uses the guitar with his storytelling. I wish I could do that."

"Stories for You" promotional video

Versant Media created my promotional storytelling video and it's finally available for you to view! Here it is:

Good News

Last Tuesday, I attended the local SCBWI monthly meeting to hear the witty, warm poet and social-media maven Gregory Pinkus of GottaBook and The Happy Accident. Between the mini-session with Martha Brockenbrough, who wrote Things That Make Us [Sic] and Pinkus' talk, there were a number of announcements including the regularly featured "Good News." I used to attend SCBWI meetings on a regular basis, and heard everything from "My illustrations are being used in a textbook" to the quietly pleased "My book just won the Caldecott Honor."

As I listened, I thought, "Why don't I bring up more good news on my blog?" While I can't match the sheer joy that Happy Stuff brings to her love of everyday/special things, I can at least cheer for other people and celebrate the blessings in my life. So, here goes:

*To start things off, I am thrilled that Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis has been nominated for the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults 2010 list. I've read the book and I really enjoyed it. It's part modern-day road trip, part historical fiction about the present-day main character's grandmother who lied about her age in order to join the World War II African American battalion of the Women’s Army Corps.

*Last Thursday morning, while browsing the Border's bookstore at the airport, I began to exit when I did an about-face. In the front of the store on display were copies of How Not To Make a Wish by Mindy Klasky. I exclaimed, "I know her! I was in library school with her!" At the time we were in library school together, she was working on a novel while getting her law-library degree and working full-time (she was already a lawyer). I knew she had published some novels since then, but to my chagrin, I hadn't read any of her books. I am going to amend that oversight soon.

*I have started reading the blog of Rainmom, a college friend with two children, one of whom has autism. We haven't talked directly since college, but I've been able to read some of her writings over the years. I was heartened to read this post about the misperceptions of autism and affection. Like I said in my previous post, we don't know yet what Lucia's diagnosis will be, but if it's on the autism spectrum, I feel as if I can deal with it better knowing that a person can be both autistic and affectionate. How odd is that of me to think thus? Lucia told me today, "I do not have autism". I told her that whatever we found out would not change who she was, what she liked to do, but could enable us to get certain services that would be helpful to her.

By the way, Lucia has announced several times, "I am not afraid of dogs anymore." She actually IS still afraid enough to lurch away from us to run from dogs, but she wants so badly not to be afraid. She has it in her mind that if she can overcome her fear of dogs, we can go to Disneyland (upgraded in her mind from that mouse-owned pizza parlor that fills both Bede and me with trepidation).

*October 24-25 will be a weekend of storytelling workshops with Nancy Mellon through the Sound Circle Center. I'm going to both the all-day workshop on Saturday with Nancy Mellon and Ashley Ramsden and the 4 hour workshop on Sunday that's just with Mellon. I am so grateful to be able to participate in a weekend of professional and personal development with a master storyteller. I've read a number of her books, but have never before heard her speak. Some of my friends have taken workshops with her before, and have assured me that she is wonderful.

Storytelling Smack-Down: the reality show

Since reality television shows are prevalent in US culture, I’ve started some ideas for a program about competing storytellers. It’s called Storytelling Smack-Down. Twenty storytellers from around the world come together in two teams to compete for one grand prize. One teller will live “happily ever after”.

As each teller is voted off, s/he is sent to the “dungeon” (don’t worry, it’s really a resort in an undisclosed location). Because it’s an international competition set in the United States, some of the storytellers have English-speaking translators. These translators live in the two cabins with their teams. It’s a little crowded, but that’s all a part of the required stress inherent in reality television. Tensions heighten when the host (K. Sean Buvala, creator of Storyteller.net, would be perfect) announces that each team has to choose a livestock animal to live in the cabins with the teams. When the storytellers complain, the host points out that It Could Always Be Worse.

There is some heated discussion among the teams about the fairness of the English-centered program, but the first true drama arises when fisticuffs break out between two storytellers regarding the proper ending of Three Little Pigs. One teller says, “The pigs who made houses out of straw and sticks should be eaten by the wolf because of their foolishness—it’s a case of natural consequences.” The other teller says, “It’s not much of a story if the third pig doesn’t have companions to help him defeat the wolf.”

Some of the team challenges include putting together tandem stories, incorporating props in stories and competing in various arenas such as a park with construction noises, an auditorium with high ceilings and only a megaphone for amplification, and an island surrounded by crocodiles. The teams get smaller as tellers voted off are sent to the dungeon.

The stress begins to show. Another fight breaks out over who has permission to tell stories from which cultures. One team says, “Stories belong to everyone” while the other team says, “It all depends upon the culture. Some stories belong to the communities from which they came and should not be told without permission.” During one challenge, two storytellers are disqualified for representing literary stories as folktales.

In the final days, the host tells the remaining three tellers to move out of their cabins (which are filled with squalor because of the livestock) and into hotel rooms. The tellers can hardly believe their good fortune. Viewers watch a time-lapse montage of a gratuitous day of primping and buffing that’s a glorified ad for all the sponsors. Little do they realize that they are being prepped for the final and most grueling challenge of all: the “Scheherazade Cycle”. The challenge is to start a story and keep going until there is only one teller left standing. Tellers get ten-minute bathroom breaks every hour with twenty-minute eating breaks every six hours, but there are no allowances for sleep.

At the end, the winner gets the big cash prize and all the other tellers come out from the “dungeon” to greet the audience and answer questions. What’s beneficial about this show is that every teller has some amount of airtime on an international level. The surprising popularity of the show means that subsequent seasons will be filmed in different locations all over the world. The show brings a boost to the oral tradition, though some are worried about how the reality show may dilute the true definition of storytelling. There’s also some concern about tellers selling out as they accept product placement spots, but the tellers point out that now they have a chance of paying off their children’s college tuitions.

'Possum's Dilemma

Brer Possum’s Dilemma is an African-American folktale retold by Jackie Torrence. If you click on the link, you may read the story in its entirety. This story of a kind-hearted opossum who listens to the seductive pleadings of the snake despite knowing that snakes are bad news is an interesting counterpoint to the Good Samaritan parable. It's a hard lesson, and it hurts.

Crafty Thursday: Math Gnomes

I know, it's Friday. Between having my daughter with me all day long until French camp begins next week and preparing songs for French camp, I've had a full schedule. I've also started getting up early in the morning to exercise. That means going to bed early. Here and there, I've had some time to sew, and thus I finally created a set of royal "math gnomes" inspired by the Waldorf tradition of math education. While many math gnomes sets have the four processes of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division as subjects of King Equals, my mom told me about the story setup of the royal math gnomes: King Addition loves to collect things, Queen Subtraction likes to give away her wealth, Prince Multiplication likes to do things fast, and Princess Division is a staunch social advocate who wants the resources to be divided fairly. Lucia came up with the idea of Equals as a Jester. Here is Lucia's drawing of the Royal Math Gnomes:



Here is the set I've made for the family:





If you do a search for "Math Gnomes" on Flickr, you'll come up with some other lovely representations like this one and this one. Two nice sets I've admired on Etsy are by julieblanchette and mamaforearth.

If I post a set of math gnomes in my shop, it would definitely be a big-ticket item. (August 21, 2009 Update: here they are.) I don't really know what the market is for math gnomes. Of course people admire the sets, but chances are that the people who need math gnomes the most are probably working with small budgets. I've joked about branching out into having different singular math gnomes be available to provide encouragement for teens working on Algebra, Geometry and Calculus homework:

A Father's Day Story by Amish Guitar

Amish Guitar writes about how he spent Father's Day with his father. By the time I read the last paragraph, I had tears in my eyes:

What I did for Father's Day with My Dad

The Sad Stories

A few weeks ago, Lucia wanted me to tell her a sad story. I spun out a story of a couple who wanted a child, couldn't have a child, and then had the spirit of the child who was supposed to be theirs appear before them in the woods as the couple was cooking over a camp-fire. The child said, "Oh, how I wish I could have been your child," and disappeared. I filled it out with a lot of "and they cried, and they cried, 'Oh how we wish we had a child.'" (Dear Spinnerets, I don't know what had gotten into me except that as far as the four humors go, I have a melancholy nature. I wish I were sanguine, but I'm not.) Lucia was enjoying the story. However, I couldn't bear the couple's sorrow, and I had them find a child in a basket outside their door the next morning with a note that said, "I am your child."

Lucia was put out that I gave the story a happy ending.

A few days ago, when Bede was driving Lucia home from school, he told her a story of a woodcutter who found a stump in the forest and decided in fun that he would dress the stump, feed the stump lunch and pretend the stump was a child. Of course, one day the stump turned into a child.

Lucia demanded, "What are the sad parts of the story?"

Alkelda: Dolls for Storytelling and the Nature Table

Happy May Day! Alkelda is open for business. I've been working hard on getting the shop ready, and now I'm going to take a deep breath and catch up on my blog reading... right after my 10:00 am storytelling gig today. Thank you for all of your warm words of encouragement.


Flowers: Daffodil, Fuchsia, Snowdrop, Crocus


Elementals: Aether, Air, Earth, Water, Fire

I am going to miss my friends as they go out into the world. But like Lissy of Lissy's Friends by Grace Lin, I will make more.

Storytime Wrap-Up: Seattle Public Library

We finally have winners of the Children's Book Sequels contest! The fabulous Minh Le and I will announce them next week, along with honorable mentions and all the other entries as well.

Today, I performed at the Madrona-Sally Goldmark branch of Seattle Public Library. This was the performance that had been postponed from December due to snow.



We had a good turn-out (29 people) and there were a number of babies as well as toddlers and preschoolers. People seemed to have a good time. I know I did. I performed my new song, "May I Walk With You?" with felt-board pieces you can see here:



There's a daytime version of this song, and a nighttime version. Here is the main body of the daytime version:

I went for a walk in the fields one day,
And I met a duck who was going my way,
"Quack, quack," said the duck, "May I walk with you,
Quack, quack," said the duck, "May I walk with you?"

Repeat with different animals.

The final verse:

And when I stopped walking, I turned to see
A whole bunch of animals following me....

[call out all the animal sounds]

Then we sat in the meadow and we all had tea,
When the party was over, they said to me,
"So long, and thanks for your company,
So long and thanks for your company."

I plan to record it eventually so that you may hear what it sounds like.

In other news, storytelling student Jody Segal had kind things to say about my gig at Third Place Books yesterday, which you may read here.

Come Again in the Spring

A month ago, I heard fellow storyteller Aarene Storms tell Richard Kennedy's "Come Again in the Spring" on her Global Griot Sunday morning radio program. As I listened, I knew I had read or heard the story sometime ago in my childhood, but I couldn't remember when or what context. It's a story about a man named Old Hark who has fed the birds ever since he was a little boy. One day in winter, a stranger comes to visit. The stranger is Death, and it's Old Hark's time to go, only Old Hark will have none of it. Old Hark tells Death,

Come again in the spring. I won't hinder you none then. But you see all these birds? Come winter time, they depend on me to feed them. They naturally ought to fly south in the fall but don't, reason I been feeding 'em all winter since I was no bigger 'an a skip bug. They'd die if I was gone-- they ain't real wintering birds. But you come back in the spring, and they'll know I won't be here next winter and have enough sense to go south.

Death offers a wager of three questions that involve memory, and Old Hark takes it. The birds are instrumental in the winning of the wager. I won't give away the ending, but I'll tell you that every time I read it, I have to take a deep breath and hold myself still. It's the literary equivalent of the "tenor rush."

You can find "Come Again in the Spring" and other stories in the book Richard Kennedy: Collected Stories, illustrated by Marcia Sewell. It's out-of-print, but I hope you can find it through your library system, through Interlibrary Loan, or inexpensively through a used bookstore.

Contest update: There's still no final word from our judges. They're slogging it out! I am glad other people are judging the entries. There are a lot of good submissions, and I wish we had more prizes. Really.

Story Dice by Mamaroots plus a Note about High Tea

Photo by Mamaroots. Used with permission.

During a recent search for "Waldorf" and "nature table" on Etsy.com, I found Story Dice in Mamaroots' shop. I appreciate that her shop has a section specifically devoted to storytellers, and that the goal is to bring storytelling into the home. Mamaroots also has a blog devoted to storytelling and crafting, as well as birthing and parenting from a social activist angle. You may find her blog here: Mamaroots.

**
In other news, the school auction catalog is online. If you would like to see what sorts of items are available at this year's auction, visit this link. The left side of the page has different items up for bid by category. It'll be interesting to find out for how much these items actually end up selling in this particular economic climate. While I've got a wish-list that's half a page long, the only item I want to make sure I bring home is a pair of tickets to the Mother-Daughter High Tea. Yorkshire Pudding will sympathize with me (or rather, sympathise, in his case) in that what many think of as high tea is actually afternoon tea, or "low tea." High tea is a substantial meal akin to dinner, not an afternoon array of finger-sandwiches, scones and pastries. I pointed that out in my catalog edits, but High Tea it remains. Anyway, I want to go, and so does Lucia. It's right around her birthday, so we can attend it in lieu of a party.

The Snow Maiden and the Five Laws of Storytelling

"Snegurochka" plate based on art by Boris Zworykin

My daughter's assistant-kindergarten teacher told the story of The Snow Maiden two days in a row. On Thursday, while I was typing, Lucia said to me, "I had tears in my eyes, but I didn't cry when my teacher told the story of the Snow Maiden." I looked over, and her eyes were brimming. I closed my computer, swooped her up, and encouraged her to talk about the story. She said, "I was so sad when the Snow Maiden melted. She comes back each year. Why am I crying?"

"You are moved by beauty," I said. I told her that had I listened to the story with her in class, I probably would have felt like crying too.

The next day, the assistant-teacher told "The Snow Maiden" again, and this time, Lucia wept openly. The main teacher told me that the other children looked at Lucia in wonder-- not critically, but with curiosity. We talked about how different stories move us in different ways. I told Lucia that The Clown of God and Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep always make me cry, every single time. "Those stories don't make me cry," she replied.

I cannot help but think of S. R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science. They are also applicable to storytelling, I think. Here are the laws as modified:

1. Stories are for use.
2. Every listener his or her story.
3. Every story its listener.
4. Save the listener's time (i.e. don't overexplain).
5. The story is a growing organism.

Generosity... or not?

I'm working on some new stories and songs for my repertoire. One story is a variation of the Nasreddin/Nasr-ed-din Khoja story called "The Loan of a Cauldron" which you can find here and also in collections of Yiddish fairy tales such as Isaac Bashevis Singer's When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw ("Shrewd Todie and Lyzer the Mizer"). My version features a seamstress who is frustrated over her repeated attempts to get the rich mayor of her town to pay her for the bright green coat with brass buttons the seamstress made for him. The seamstress outwits the mayor and ends up doing quite well for herself.

This brings me to a small quandry. In earlier days, I would have happily shared my version of the story in its entirety on this blog. However, once something is posted on a blog, it's considered to be published without the author legitimately being able to claim a publishing credit. I discovered this paradox after a magazine expressed interest in my "Children's Books That Never Were" series, but didn't want anything that I had already posted on Saints and Spinners. By the time I'd heard from the magazine, I felt I'd already shared my best pieces with the 30+ people who regularly read my blog.

With all of the folktales and folksongs I perform, very little of it is actually my intellectual property. I'm starting to feel more protective of the originally pieces I create plus the public domain folktales that I've made "my own," as it were. I encourage audience members to share the stories they've heard and liked, and everything on this blog is published under a Creative Commons License. The chances that someone is going to appropriate one of my works for his or her own is slim, and the likelihood that my works would make me wildly successful is even slimmer... so why am I feeling so protective of my creative output? This is not a rhetorical question. If you have some perspectives you'd like to share, I'd like to read them in the comments or your own blog posts.