Assignment 4: Story Set

For my final assignment I chose 3 stories that I loved in my younger years. Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little pigs were told to me many times by my family as we went on long boring walks on the weekends. I would request that my Dad tell a “mixed-up fairy tale” and thought that the little side notes that took the story out of the traditional were the funniest thing in the world (once he told me that the 3rd little pig flipped the switch to make the fire in the gas fireplace and I still think it’s hilarious). I was sure to add a number of silly asides for you.

The story “Lettuce is Too Flat” was introduce to me by my sister a few years ago. We owned “Garth Pig and the Ice Cream Lady” when we were growing up and were thrilled when we ran across a whole series of books about the 10 little piglets. I thought about creating a Big Bad Wolf theme for the storytelling set and using Garth Pig --the 10-seater bicycle is something to be marveled at, as well as the oddities of “chocolate woooshies”, but that would have put me way over the time limit (already broken), and “Lettuce is Too Flat” is one of my “favoruite” stories. I believe that Benjamin’s plight is universally understood.
I also chose these stories because of their repetitive bits in threes “What big… you have” and “Little Pig, Little Pig…” are wonderful repetitions and stick in your head. Benjamin Pig echoes this with “I don’t like…” which fits him in this triad of stories.

My goal for this storytelling set is to break away from my pure narration of storytelling and add some dialog. I’ve hear my classmates do wonderful things with the pitch tone, speed, and intensity of their voices to create characters, and so here I tried to emulate that. Let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Here is my final storytelling set in internet explorer. For Firefox you can click here. It runs a little over 15 minutes (15 minutes and 11 seconds)

Assignment 3: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

For assignment 3 we are supposed to adapt a picture book to the storytelling format.
Inspired by Pete Seeger's Abiyoyo I decided to put mine to music. Unfortunately I don’t play the banjo (yet), but one of my co-workers, knowing my interest in the ukulele loaned me his for a couple of weeks. I quickly mastered 3 cords.
The theme of this Saturday’s storytime will be “Days of the Week” and so I broke out the Very Hungry Caterpillar flannel set from BCL, and made up a song for you to enjoy. Click here to view my 4 minute story in Internet Explorer. Click here to view my story in Fire Fox.


You may have to adjust the volume on your computer.
Let me know what you think!

Finding Stories

One thing I've really enjoyed about the course so far is the opportunity we have to look for and enjoy different stories.
I've spent time perusing the 398.2s and Parent/Teacher collections and have enjoyed reading the different tales available. One of my favorite resources right now is Margaret Read MacDonald's Three Minute Tales: Stories from around the world to tell or read when time is short. It contains different situations one might be in when a story is just the right thing to fill time, or to make a point such as going on a walk, or on a museum tour. The tales are short (3 minutes or under, with the "time it takes to tell" estimated at the top.) From the discussion boards I can see that we have lots of Margaret Read MacDonald fans in the class, so you can now count me in as one as well. (I've checked out her "Twenty Tellable Tales" and will start on that soon.)

A publisher that I'm starting to notice is "August House" with their "American Storytelling" and "World Storytelling" series. Those stories are also nice at a couple of pages each with black and white pictures along with them. Something from the same publisher I ran across this spring break was called "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" which followed the school-yard chants, and camp songs that may not be appropriate for adult ears. I don't believe they count as Storytelling in any way (as they don't tell a story), but reading through the article on Folk Literature for class, most defiantly fall into that category, as they are passed from person to person with only slight modifications, and so fall into the storytelling tradition.

There are many other books I'm using as well that I pulled out of the 398.2s. Right now I'm searching for stories that I can tell to fit the story time themes "Days of the Week" and "pop corn". Any Suggestions? (The little Mouse, ripe red strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear was a great hit-- I used the book as the illustrations are what make that story.)

Today's Books:

MacDonald, Margaret Read, 1940-. (2004.). Three-minute tales : stories from around the world to tell or read when time is short. Little Rock, Ark. : August House Publishers. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0710/2004046257.html

Sherman, Josepha. (1995.). Greasy grimy gopher guts : the subversive folklore of childhood. Little Rock, AR : August House Publishers.

The ball is rolling

I’m very excited for this coming Friday and Saturday! It’s going to be a storytelling filled couple of days.
Friday I’m going to see my first storytellers "Eth-Noh-Tec presents Of Sojourns and Shadows: Asian American Message In the Myth" for part of the Hearing voices Storytelling Festival, then Saturday morning I’m checking out "Nancy Wang - Lanterns on a Dark Moon Night: The History of Chinese Americans in Monterey"
Saturday afternoon I’m covering Storytime at the library where I work and I’m going to throw a story in there. The theme is Dance and now I like the story “Rabbit’s Snow Dance” a native American story about how rabbit lost his tale, and gained big ears and basically how he looks today. This is my first non-spontaneous story telling in front of an audience, is I’m going to be practicing all I can on friends and family (and in my head).
Tune in next weekend to see how these events are!

Time for Story 1

While the regular librarian is out I'm in charge of Saturday's "family storytime" at the BCL on April 18th, and 25th. (I'm also taking a couple more in May)

The themes she is giving me are "Strawberries" and "Dancing" so I'm looking stories that pertain to those themes. (any suggestions?)

I've found the zen one about the man being chased by tigers and hanging from a vine off the edge of a cliff on the brink of death and tasting a sweet strawberry-- It's good, action-packed, and thought provoking, I'm not sure it's conclusive enough for 2-7-year-olds. (I mean, "a strawberry never tasted so sweet"? If I were five I'd be upset the strawberry didn't give him the energy he needed to climb the vine and make the tigers his friends (or make them into tiger pancakes)).

I think "Dancing" will be fairly easy to find stories about.

I'm a bit nervous to be up in front of everyone without a book to protect me, so I'm inclining towards using a puppet or two for props. When I've used puppets in songs I've had good experiences, so this may be a good way to ease into storytelling for a new audience.

I know that some would say that using props is cheating, but, oh well...

I'm also working on figuring out this digital voice recorder I got for Christmas, that way I can record my storytimes, and post them here!