Once
upon a time…Storytelling for the very young.
by
Anne E. Stewart
I’ll never forget Mem Fox telling The Little Match
Girl to a group of librarian’s and teachers in Darwin early on in my storytelling
career. I remember the tears in my eyes, the sadness, and the lump in my
throat. She had us all there, eating out of the palm of her hand. Not a
loud, theatrical Mem but rather a quiet reflective Mem in keeping with
the emotions of the story. What power! What a storyteller!
But more than that, there was one thing in particular
that has always stayed with me. Mem has a tremendous appreciation and passion
for stories, language and literacy. Telling stories, she explained,
is like the pouring forth of precious jewels—each delicious word to be
savoured, to be handed to children with love, respect, passion and reverence.
Fifteen years on, with countless pre school storytimes
under my belt I too have a passionate belief in the importance of developing
in children a love of language and literature. I still thrill to the eager
up-turned faces that look at me adoringly. I always know when I’ve told
stories to a child, even if I don’t remember their face. They look at me
like we are old friends.
But of all the age groups, pre-schoolers are probably
the trickiest—the most intense, the most constant. There is no chance to
relax into a long story. Pre-school sessions necessarily move along at
a fast pace, moving from rhyme to story to song. Pre-schoolers have no
qualms about showing you their cut finger in the middle of the story, or
telling you their cat’s name or what they had for breakfast. It’s hard
work
However, telling pre-schoolers stories and creating
a love for the magic and music of words is probably one of our most important
jobs. Over the years I have learnt many tricks and developed a quiet confidence
in my abilities and the stories I have chosen to work with. This article
purports to share some of these with you.
Nothing can beat experience when it comes to the
art of storytelling but here are some guidelines to start you on the path.
I have always found it easier to work with themes
with pre-school storytimes—be it as simple as food, the wind, animals or
bathtime—it helps me to focus the session and find material from the excellent
plethora of stories, songs and rhymes available. The trick is to work up
a package that incorporates a range of material.
Let me give you some examples.
Anne Pellowski in her excellent book The Story
Vine has a simple version of How the Years were named for the Animals—a
beautiful old Chinese story that starts with the Buddha sitting under his
sacred Bodhi Tree. Let’s take this as a starting point for exploring
pre-school storytelling.
I saw Pellowski tell this story using twelve tiny
animal figurines. At the time I couldn’t find any myself so I cut out and
pasted the animals in the story on to black cardboard. They were big and
bold and young children quickly got the idea to name the animals with me
as the story progressed. First year the rat, second year the ox, third
the tiger, fourth the rabbit, fifth the dragon and so on. Let’s start with
the year of the rat. First some nursery rhymes;
“Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock.
Okay everyone—arms up nice and straight so we can watch your little mice
run up them.”
With these developing listeners it is a good idea
to involve them with action rhymes. Get them to join in in a focused way.
In my time in libraries Elisabeth Matterson’s This Little Puffin was always
in my reference collection. It was a well-organised great source for nursery
rhymes and appropriate actions.
With this early age group I invariably use lots
of props.
“I’ve brought some visitors to meet you today,
they’re very small and very shy and frightened of cats. Can you guess what
they are?”
Out of my pocket I produce two little mice—available
from pet shops as toys for cats.
“These are my friends Tom Thumb and Hunka Munka.
They want to do a little poem with you. Now, because you haven’t got any
mice, maybe you’d like to pretend with me. Put your hand out flat and pretend.
It’s a nest. Use your pointer and middle finger of the other hand as mice.”
Now:
Two little mice sat down to spin
Pussy passed by,
and popped his head in
What are you doing my little men?
We’re weaving coats for gentlemen.
Can I come in and bite off the thread?
No! No! Pussy, you’d bite off our heads.
I repeat this through the session. This poem naturally
leads to a longer story, Two Bad Little Mice by Beatrix Potter.
All of this takes about twenty minutes, quite
long enough for beginning listeners. If your pre-schoolers are well trained
and it’s later in the year you could extend it by searching for related
stories. Working in a library I was always on the lookout for new material
but if you don’t work in a library try looking for a reference book titled
Subject Access to Picture Books. This could save you hours of perusing
the shelves.
Let’s pick some more animals from our Chinese
Years, say the rooster and the dragon, my Chinese animal and my daughter’s
respectively. I love telling this story and children seem to really concentrate
on it. The Rooster and the Heavenly Dragon can be found in a multicultural
collection by Margaret Read MacDonald.
“Once, the rooster had beautiful golden horns
on the top of his head. And so it goes….”
In my hometown of Daylesford, in country Victoria
I earn my bread and butter money at a shop called Dragons And Dreaming.
Three metres of scaly red dragon wrap itself around the wall protecting
a small cave where I tell stories. Naturally I’ve got a lot of Dragonlore.
You must hunt out Jack Prelutsky’s book of dragon
poems The Dragons are Singing Tonight. The title poem is sensational. I
love sharing beautiful rhythmic poetry like this.
Would you believe I’ve even adapted PD Eastman’s
classic Are you my Mother, to ‘Are yee me kinfolk.’ I gathered all the
props from my children’s toys together with a handsome green Sri Lankan
Dragon puppet I had.
It’s like this:
Mother dragon goes off to look for food. While
she’s gone her baby in its egg is washed down into a deep dark lake.
Claws start scratching and the baby dragon emerges to look for his mother.
He finds out he’s not a fish that has scales like him and he’s not a reptile
with claws like his, not a bird that can fly or a fire that burns. He wanders
back to his nest and his mother finds him. How deliciously satisfying for
a child to be back home with his mother who loves him. I’ve even got a
version featuring Dinosaurs!
Year of the snake leads me to several other favourite
books, poems and stories. Once again I recommend Anne Pellowski’s The Story
Vine, this time for its string tricks.
I had the great fortune to meet Anne and collected
a few of her stories and tricks. I have employed poetic licence and changed
her snake into Gorialla the Rainbow Serpent; I also do the mosquito trick.
While on an Aboriginal theme, I have also adapted
an action rhyme Pellowski illustrates in her book. My niece Esther was
called Muk Muk by the Aboriginal people of central Australia, where she
was born because of her big round eyes like an owl. The actions are in
the book but this is how I tell it, once children have guessed that Muk
Muk is an Aboriginal word for owl.
Muk Muk sat in the branch of a tree,
As quiet as quiet can be.
It was night
And her eyes were open like this
She looked all around
Not a thing did she see
Two mice started creeping
up the trunk of the tree
And they stopped below the branch
To see what they could see
The solemn old owl said
‘Twooit Twoooh
Up jumped the mice
and down they flew.
I always have great fun with another Aboriginal
story that of Tiddalick the giant frog that drinks up all of the water.
I have a big green balloon that I blow up as Tiddalick drinks up all the
water and gets fatter and fatter and bigger and bigger. I love children’s
nervous trepidation. Will it or won’t it burst?
I tell the version from the ABC book Favourite
Playschool Stories or maybe it’s in the collection More Favourite Playschool
Stories. I recommend you get them both. Likewise the Playschool Useful
Book is a must for those interested in developing pre-school themes.
A list could go on and on about the stories, poems
and rhymes that have become like old friends but I should conclude with
some practical aspects of pre-school storytelling.
Interruptions
I’m afraid these will always happen no matter
how experienced you are or how well you know your stories. Don’t
let it phase you! Don’t ignore the child or they’ll keep badgering but
a firm “you can tell me after the story” will help. We are training these
young people in their listening skills so we need to be pro-active.
A couple of favourite lines that always work for me are:
“You know how I can tell children are ready for
a story? They’re sitting up nice and straight and looking at me.”
“Oh dear, I can’t go on, somebody’s talking and
that will spoil the story for everyone else.” Then you eyeball the
yapper!
Choosing Stories
The stories you choose will stay in your repertoire
for a long time so make sure they are stories you love. To hark back to
Mem, you need to be passionate about your choices.
Essential Elements
Keep your storytime moving along. Include a range
of material and vary the length of pieces you present. Children learning
language love repetition so make sure you include old favourites like Gingerbread
Boy, or The Hobyahs, invite the children to join in this structured way.
Beware of open-ended questions with the very young.
Their minds could be wandering anywhere and you may not get the response
you had hoped for.
Finally to finish a quote from another favourite
storyteller of mine, Patricia Scott from Tasmania—who has won the Dromkeen
medal for her contribution to children’s literature.
“Like your story, know your story. Relax and enjoy
the telling.”
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