We got a wonderful compliment from a first grader the other day. After one of our tellers had finished his story, the child jumped up and called out in his loudest voice, “Your stories are AWESOME! I wish you were my Dad!”
Now there is high praise for storytelling!
Story Squad was featured at the Club Boulevard Humanities Magnet Elementary School in Durham today. Those students who read books over the summer were invited to the celebration during which Story Squad shared stories, and then the children were able to select a book and bookmark of their choice. For the 1st-3rd-grade group, we told a tale from Mississippi about how rabbit escaped from wildcat by luring turkeys into wildcat’s grasp instead, but rabbit lost her tail in the process. We also told a Native American tale about how coyote learned his “crying song.” For the older 4-5th graders, we told an urban legend and the New Zealand folktale about how Maui fished up the island of New Zealand using his grandmother’s magic jawbone fishhook.
It was a wonderful celebration of literacy and reading.
Four years ago, when Story Squad first began keeping track of the performances we offered, we counted 6 different venues. This year we had 25! Two of those were weekly performances at area schools (Estes Hills Elementary School in Chapel Hill and Clue Boulevard Humanities Magnet in Durham), where we did multiple performances in 1st grade classrooms each week.
So, we just did the math, and the result is that Story Squad gave 189 storytelling performances from August 2014 to July 2015.
We’re deeply proud of that number and the growth it represents, as we feel it shows the value people see in storytelling as a way to literacy and enchantment….and, of course, it’s fun, too!
We just finished our first multiple-library tour of Johnston County libraries yesterday, with visits to the Selma Public Library, then on to the Public Library of Johnston County and Smithfield, The Princeton Public Library (housed within the Princeton High School), and finally to the Kenly Public Library. We had a wonderful time sharing world folktales at each of these Story Stops and want to thank Emily Childress-Campbell, the Head of Youth Services at the Public Library of Johnston County and Smithfield, for organizing our first “tour.”
Find out by seeing 1st grade children’s reactions in the montage below:
We shared stories with the “Camp Kids” today, telling them folktales from Mexico (Senor Coyote and the Dogs), Israel (It Could Always Be Worse) and Africa (Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock). We all had a great time, and the kids were able to get out of the 98-degree heat, cool off, and enjoy some “armchair traveling.”
What happens when you mix together in a park setting, authors, performers, books, workshops, and biblio-enthusiasts? Durham’s Read Local Festival! What a marvelous idea! Story Squad joined in the “celebrity reads” section of the festival to share a folktale from Indonesia. Why storytelling at a reading festival? Because, as our tagline states, “reading begins with hearing”! And what better things to hear than stories that have withstood the test of time…LOTS of time. The particular story we shared was about a stonecutter who wishes to be the most powerful thing in the world. With a series of wishes, he transforms from his humble stonecutter status to become the king, the sun, the clouds, the wind, and a mountain, but each time he finds something that is stronger than himself. As the mountain, he finds the stonecutter carving rocks from his base, and so his final wish is to return to the strongest thing he could ever be…himself!
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the McKimmon Center for Extension and Lifelong Learning at NC State University brought in storytellers Sarah Beth Nelson and Brian Sturm to share personal narrative and folk stories with their adult learners. Sarah Beth told a personal story about being the Matron of Honor at her sister’s wedding, and Brian shared the Vietnamese folktale called The Love Crystal about a noblewoman who falls in love with a fisherman and his music (believing him to be a prince in disguise) and realizes, too late, that she actually did love him, too. Other storytellers there were Cynthia Raxter, from Bynum, and Alan Hoal, from Cary.
What a marvelous time we had at the Durham County Storytelling Festival. Story Squad tellers Mark Riddle, Sarah Beth Nelson, Nan Pincus, Amy Sayle, and Brian Sturm shared the stage with Willa Brigham, Ron Jones, Louise Omoto Kessel, Alan Hoal, and Cynthia Raxter, bringing folktales and personal narrative tales to the enjoyment of the assembled group. Thanks to all of the folks at the Durham County Library who made this event possible…it was a fantastic time, and we hope to be part of it in the future as it grows.
We visited Graham, NC and the Mayco Bigelow Community Center this morning to share a workshop on how to find, learn, and perform stories so that they become as enchanting as possible. The audience was children’s librarians attending a summer reading workshop sponsored by the NC State Library (thanks Lori Special for your role in putting this together) and thanks to Michelle Mills for inviting us. Now here’s the story: we arrived at the central library on S. Main Street before our session was to start (luckily) as the workshop was in the Bigelow center when we thought it was in the library. So then the challenge was to get across town within the speed limit (mostly) before our session started at the new location. We almost made it on time, but it just goes to show you that “the best laid plans often go awry”…now what story was that line from? Well, since you asked….
The original is actually from Scottish poet Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up In Her Nest with the Plough (1785). The original text is: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ Gang aft agley.”