Heads or Tales

Summer In The Library

 

This summer, I have a bunch of jobs with the Columbus library system.  I feel very lucky to be chosen by them for their summer reading program.  The best part is that I get to tell a bunch of spooky stories a bunch of times.  I get to say the forbidden words like “witch” and “ghost”.  I feel like I’m let out on storytelling recess.    This afternoon I was in the downtown library….the main big one.  We had 150 children show up.  What a good time.

 

CET Connect in Cincinnati tellis me that they are showing one of the videos I made for them last spring.  CET Connect is a great site full of  stuff for the whole family.  Take a look.   Here’s the link: http://www.cetconnect.org/kids_families/index.asp

The Big Storm

 

 

 

Last night I was off to Hilliard Library to tell stories to their real little ones.  I packed my big black and white bag with my little treasure chest stuffed with dog finger puppets.  I also stuck into my bag a big rabbit puppet, a bunch of colored paper, my mouse puppet and a brown shoebag filled with worm puppets.  The sky was black and thunder rumbled deep.  Bits of lighting sparked as I left the back door.  Just as I poked on to the freeway, the rain started to fall and just as I got underway it really fell.  For a minute, my wipers couldn’t keep up, but the big truck in front of me put on his emergency lights and slowed to a crawl.  Creeping was a pace I could handle.  The downpour lasted about twenty minutes, but I did fine with that big truck’s blinking red lights in front of me.  I tried to call the library to let them know that I might be late. I dug around deep under the puppets, pulled out my cell phone, turned it on and dialed.  Nothing happened. The cell phone, that resource for situations just like this one, wasn't going to step up to the plate this time.  

 

The rain cleared, and I arrived on time.  Fifty-six moms, dads and kids showed up for stories, and we sang “Rain, Rain Go Away” first thing.  We were right in the middle of a story involving the bag full of worms when my cell phone went off.  It was my daughter, newly arrived from Pittsburg. My hands, however, were full of worms.  My cell phone was deep in my cavernous bag, and it is more than hard to turn off.  I have to press the red and green buttons at the same time really hard.  I let that phone ring….and ring until it finally stopped.  Jess, my daughter, tried again.  This time I was creating a butterfly out of paper, and once again, I let it ring...and ring.  The minute I finished that program, I had the vision of throwing that bag to one of the parents and asking that kind person to find the phone and turn it off. Why do solutions come after I need them?

 

When I got home, it seemed that German Village was the epicenter of the storm.  The lights were out,  and our big butterfly bushes have fallen over.  Nelson said that the street flooded up over the sidewalk. I sat on our back porch.  A chain saw whined a few streets back as the sun set behind the condos, the police sirens wailed, but my cell phone was silent at last, buried deep deep down in my bag still stuffed with puppets.

More Spooky Stories

 

 

Today I’m going to tell spooky stories at the library.  Just this morning I’ve been rereading Rafe Martin’s Mysterious Tales of Japan.  What a good book that is.  For me, reading that book started a journey of researching Ho-ichi the Earless and the Boy Who Drew Cats, two stories I really love to tell.  Rafe Martin mentions Lafcadio Hearne in the book and in the bibliography.  Mr. Hearne was born in 1850.  He worked in the newspaper business and wound up in Japan.  He fell in love with the Japanese culture and with its folklore.  He ended up translating a number of folktales, which were important as part of my own research.  I’ve told both Ho-ichi and The Boy Who Drew Cats often.  They are timeless in their plot and characters.  The ancient setting of Japan gives them an added flavor of mystery and ghostliness.  Both those stories, however, are suited for an audience of third grade and older.  My 99-year-old mother loved them both.  I know that if I have a mixed group of ages this afternoon, with some younger than third grade, I’m going to want to tell those stories.  That’s the hard part of a library audience and spooky tales.  Some stories will be good for some but bad for others because of the mixed ages.   Spooky tales are such a good medium for being afraid and coming out all right on the other side.  It does vary by age and developmental level on just how much scariness is good to experience. To expose someone who is not old enough to handle a piece of spookiness is a very bad idea. Doing such a thing would certainly keep me awake at night even if ghosts, witches and spooky creatures didn’t.

Spooky Stories

I’m getting ready for a bunch of spooky storytelling at the Columbus libraries for the summer reading program.  I’ve dug out all my spooky stuff, and have been practicing.  Here is a list of some great resources…

Frog’s Riddle and other Draw and Tell Stories by Richard Thompson.  "The Ghost On Pederson’s Farm" will be fun with younger audiences.

I heard a great recording of "The Ghost With One Black Eye" on Tell Me Again by Renee Conley.  Just Google “Tell Me Again”

 The fall issue of Storytelling World 1999 (ISSN 1092-2717) is called Telling Scary Stories.  It has some good stories, but it also has a lot of worthwhile stuff about choosing stories to tell and there is fine interview with Kathryn Windham, who is the queen of scary telling.  You can get a copy of this magazine, put out by East Tennessee State, by going to www.storytellingworld.com and requesting the issue.

 The Ghost and I: Spooky Stories for Participatory Telling by Jennifer Justice.  A good intro about choosing stories and samples of stories to choose is included.

 Friendly ears that will listen-  I have been lucky enough to have a school in the area, which allows me to come and try  out new stories.  I’m also a member of a writer’s group, and they let me come and tell new stories.  I just came back from our meeting and got lots of good information and feedback.  I used to be a member of an online writer’s group through The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  Once I started telling oral stories, my group, which had members from all over the globe, let me send files of an oral story for critique.  Finally, I had to stop because the newer members began to question the practice, but if you can’t find a nearby group, an online group might be just the thing.  Speak Easy, an open mic for storytelling, has been active in Columbus for 4 years.  New stories are always welcome. There are many open poetry mic opportunities.  Perhaps the poetry folks just need to be introduced to some good word of mouth spooky stories.  Also every state has a representative to the National Storytelling Network.  Those people have their fingers on the various local guilds and those folks welcome good spooky tales.

 Bare Bones for Storytellers – Google this great site with the words “Bare bones for storytellers” and spooky (or Halloween)  You will be rewarded with the bare bones plot of  about 50 stories, songs and poems.  Book mark it for further reference.

 Crazy Gibberish and Other Story Hour Stretchers by Naomi Baltruck—This book has some light hearted spooky stories which invite participation.  They are perfect for younger groups or just for a change of pace.

 

Speak Easy

 

This Wednesday was our last Speak Easy of the season.  Speak Easy is an open mic night held at a local restaurant, which has a good bar.  From January to May for the past four years the Storytellers of Central Ohio have been hosting a featured teller and then offering the mic up to anyone with an 8-minute story afterwards.  In the past, the final May gathering has been spare, but this month we had close to thirty people.  Eric Wolf, from Yellow Springs, was our featured teller.  He told some original fairy tales, but my favorites were the stories of him growing up with Jacob and Mama Z in New York City.  I bet there were 5 or 6 folks signed up afterwards for the open mic with stories that they wanted to share.  I really love it when someone new steps up, and that even happened. 

The restaurant where we gather has let us come rent free because we buy food and use the bar, but they are in danger of going out of business.  I’m really sorry about that on a lot of levels.  The restaurant is a fixture here in German Village…it’s an old German singing club.  Once, in this area, German singing clubs were vibrant, but since World War II, all of that German pride has been in decline.  The building is huge with a restaurant upstairs and down.  The cost of keeping it all going must be enormous.  I thanked the manager on the way out, and she said there’s a chance they’ll be open when we are ready to start again next January.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Ovenbird

German Village, where I live, is five minutes by bike from downtown Columbus. Brick streets and brick buildings and brick sidewalks are what I see from our front window. I see people with dogs on leashes, people jogging. I see people I’ll never know parking cars and pressing the little lock that beeps as they walk away.

Eight days ago I found an ovenbird lying dead in front of the wrought iron railing of the condominiums two doors down. I didn’t know it was an ovenbird at first. At first, I just passed the bird by, thinking that it was an odd sparrow. I went back, however, and touched the olive green feathers. I don’t know if all bird feathers, while they’re still on the bird, are so soft that they make you think of infinity and of love, but the feathers of that bird did. I put him in a paper lunch bag and spread him out on a piece of waxed paper on the table. That’s how I found out he was an ovenbird. I used our bird book. Years ago, I heard the “teacher, teacher, teacher” call getting louder and louder and louder when we lived near the woods. I tried all those years ago to find the singer, but the bird book said then, as it did eight days ago, that the ovenbird lives on the forest floor and is hardly ever seen.

I buried the little green bird with the rust patch on its head underneath the heavy lead chunk in our garden sheltered by the Japanese maple. The spot is near the rock where our dog is buried and the lead piece has knife gashes made by my husband’s dad as he took pieces for fishing lures. I’m glad the ovenbird is nearby.

The day after I buried the small bird, a robin built a nest in the other Japanese maple in our yard, and this morning I saw a second ovenbird striding under the maple, picking at bugs. I watched as that bird walked confidently under the new robin's nest, under the ferns, the big leaves of the hostas and around the corner of the garage to find insects in the sunflower patch.

I feel so grateful to be part of such a big miracle as an ovenbird.

Rehearsing A Story

Ashtabula Ohio is three hours from our house, straight up the highway to Lake Erie. Yesterday, I was at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School with their kindergarteners through third graders. Nelson found a warm cozy spot back stage and fell asleep. I, on the other hand, was able to spend two hours with the students. During that time, I tried a new ending on an old story. I had thought the ending through in my head, but I had not practiced it in front of anyone. When I said the new words to the children, sitting on the gym floor in front of me, I felt the thread of the story go a little loose. I saw a shift in the posture of some of the children and wondered what they were hearing, and if the picture in their imagination had become muddy.

After the performance, we decided to spend that afternoon and night enjoying the lake. We ate dinner down in the historic district at a restaurant with white tablecloths and black napkins carefully folded into the water glasses. We walked in the night before for a drink, and I saw the Egyptian lentil dish on the menu. With that dish still in mind last night, I asked Josh, the waiter, if the lentil meal was popular.

“Two or three people have ordered it. I’ve never tried it, but the chef says it has an interesting mix of flavor, ” he said.

The dish turned out to have way too much rice with way too few lentils, topped with tomato sauce, for color I think. I ate it and as I did, I wanted the chef to come out and ask me for feedback. I really wanted to tell him how to make it better. I wondered if he practiced this new meal on anyone before he stuck it on the menu or if, just like me with my story, he saw it in his head and was pretty sure it would work.

Talking About History

Last Tuesday evening I talked for an hour with Eric Wolf on his weekly web cast about historical storytelling. What a great time it was. How often does a person get a chance to talk about something they are passionate about for an hour? Not often, for me anyway. We talked about how those stories from history find us, and how research fits in. We mulled over the difficult parts of creating an historical story, and, finally, we dug into ways that historical telling fits into the curriculum along with some specific ideas and techniques. It turns out that Eric had a family member in the Civil War and has created a program around that character. It was so interesting to learn about the changes he has made to that program and why.

Preparing for that conversation caused me to revisit all the historical stories I have in my repertoire. I looked back at all the research and practiced them so that I could talk about them with Eric. I hadn't told a few of the stories for quite awhile, and they were fading from my list of tales. I forgot how much I like them.

Below is a link for that conversation. Once you’re on his site it will be difficult to leave without listening to a bunch of other storytellers…Syd Lieberman, Lyn Ford, Brother Blue, Dianne Williams, who is the co-author of The Storytelling Classroom…. just to name a few

Here's the site...Historical Storytelling With Children<

A Podcast with Eric Wolf

Eric Wolf is the moderator of a call-in pod cast entitled The Art of Storytelling With Children, and on Tuesday April 29, I will be talking to him starting at 8 about historical storytelling and about Columbus Story Adventures, if we have time. Yesterday and today, I’ve been thinking back over the historical stories I have, I’ve been digging up the notes I made for them, and I have been listening to Eric’s archival programs. Those archival programs are really good. I can’t stop listening.

Diane Williams, a co-author of The Storytelling Classroom, speaks eloquently about storytelling and literacy. She says that storytelling involves the emotions and, invites the brain to respond. It is the response that the oral tradition invokes which enhances literacy. Jim Flanagan, a teller here in Columbus, really lays out in detail his experience in writing spooky stories with kids. Brother Blue, a street teller in Boston, said that what Eric is doing is like creating a spider web, and he’s right. Each hour of interview creates a new strand in this art form and, because it’s all online to hear and retrieve for free, Eric's interviews weave a digital a web.

Take a look at Eric’s website. It’s www.storytellingwithchildren.com. You can hear tons of really great interviews with storytellers from around the U.S. on a variety of topics: Storytelling in Ceremony, Storytelling in Schools, Peace Storytelling, Personal Narrative, Professional Development, Storytelling in Community. On Tuesday April 29, call in and join the conversation about using history as story. You just need to go to Eric’s website and subscribe.

Arts At School

Yesterday, I met with two teachers to plan the daylong residency I’ll be doing centered around The Cow Tail Switch at St. Joseph Montessori School. I’m excited to begin. Earlier this week I read about a great program in the magazine Teaching Artist. This program is centered in Mankato, Minnesota and is directed at schools that have no or little arts available in their programs. The schools apply, and the artists are drawn from several organizations throughout the city. A three-year commitment is made between the artist and the school. For the first year the artist and involved teachers meet and work to plan a curriculum-centered experience. The artist provides teacher workshops and leads the program. The second year, the teacher leads the program and the artist is the mentor and observer and for the third year, the teacher implements the program.

There’s so much that I like about this model. I like that the art is tied to the general ongoing curriculum. I like that the program requires teacher and artist to work together and that the teacher has the opportunity and motivation to make art.

Here’s what teaching artist Armando Gutierrez said when he was asked if he was apprehensive about programs like this making teaching artists obsolete, “it’s just the opposite. Training more practitioners - teachers who not only teach but also make art and have a deep understanding of art—only increases demand for arts experiences. Teachers understand the importance of art in a direct, hands-on way. And it generates more work and more opportunity for artists.”