Friday, August 22, 2014

Pop Goes the Page - stories

Over at Princeton University, at the Cotsen Children's Library, Dr. Dana Sheridan posts several times a week about the programs she does.   Her blog is Pop Goes the Page and it is truly worth a look.

Today's post is about kamishibai, a Japanese form of storytelling with colorful picture cards.  Check out this link to read her post.

She mentions Allan Say's touching book, Kimishibai Man, about an aging storyteller whose livelihood is lost to television.  At the end of the book, he decides to take his bicycle and his little stage and look for an audience.  He finds one.  Happy ending.


Kamishibai Man 

  Live storytelling thrives today, whether it is tellers with microphones,or story hours with books.  One person using her voice to tell a story, read, recited or woven from memory is so much more evocative than people acting out a scene.  A spoken story - even with pictures as aids - leads the listeners into their own imaginations where they can depth and detail.  Television and movies, and even theater to a smaller extent, leave little to the imagination.  Well, we can still imagine what the scene smells like.  We can imagine how it feels to hold that little piglet.  But not much else.

I will introduce storytelling to a group of youngsters and their parents on Sept. 6th at Cops'n'Kids in South Bethlehem.  Stop by!  and we can talk about the importance of sharing stories in person.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Fangirl

Why did I wait so long to read this?  It is awesome.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell    

Fangirl    More later.  I have to finish this book.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Storytelling Workshop


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How do you teach storytelling in one and a half hours?  It's a trick question because you can't teach storytelling in one and a half hours.

All I can hope to do tomorrow is introduce a group of kids to story structure (the very basics) and the fun of using your whole self to tell a story. 

The workshop will be at the Upper Macungie Community Center - all the heck the way over in Breinigsville, PA and it happens at 10 am.

If you are in that neck of the woods, stop by.

BTW, I am reading two books right now, How We Learn by Benedict Carey.  Whoa!  This book is an eye opener into the workings of memory and into the workings of Learning Scientists.  Non-fiction always takes me longer to digest.

Show Me a Story by Emily K. Neuberger is about teaching storytelling to children.  A lot of the activities in this book are about creating stories, rather than telling stories that you have heard or read.  Still, the crafts are open-ended enough to appeal to a wide age range of children.  And the games are great for sharing tales and getting creative juices flowing.

I have downloaded a couple of e-galleys that I am excited to get into soon.  I still have some ARCs from BEA to which I should give my attention. 

Any suggestions on how I can share these ARCs?  Let me know.