In preparation for telling at the Washington Folk Festival, I needed to practice on my unsuspecting school-age story time. Hence our theme: Folk and Fairytales! (again). Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind too much.
I started off with The Hare who Married a Princess from Margaret Read MacDonald's Shake it Up Tales (originally from Benin.) I love this story. My storytelling teacher had us learn and tell it on the spot in class and I've been perfecting it ever since. Lots of room for ad-lib, audience participation, and hamming it up. The kids had fun with it, but when I asked for volunteers to help me out I got hands raised long past when I needed them. Silly me. Also, while I put in plentiful hints as to the answer to this riddle story, they seemed a little mystified at the end (though someone did come up with the answer before too long.)
I continued with The Goat from the Hills and Mountains (which I plan to tell at the festival) from Flora? Campoy and Alma Flor Ada's Tales our Abuelita's Told (and from Spain and Latin America.) I took the chance of being considered lame and out of touch with the sophistication of my audience by using a flannel board (which I will not be using at the festival.) The kids were spellbound. I can only figure that they mistake it for tv somehow. The young kids are just the same. I was hoping they'd catch onto the refrain and threaten to eat the cute little characters on the board along with me. However, as I had invited them to help out, one little girl decided to try to tell everything along with me (after all, she could identify what I was putting up on the flannel board) and the lady in charge of them was a little growly. I don't think anyone wanted to speak up after that.
I did this story previously with my 2-5 year olds and it worked just as well.
If anybody reads this and wants a copy of my drawings for the flannelboard figures, just ask in a comment...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
2-5 Story Time: Here, Kitty Kitty...
I walked out of story time on Thursday and smacked my forehead. I completely forgot about the book that made me want to do Kitty Story Time. Oh well. What Will Fat Cat Sit On Next? will have to wait. (Have I mentioned yet that Jan Thomas rocks? Bold, big simple pictures and stories that make kids and grownups laugh and give you plenty of room to ham it up. Recipe for success.)
Attack of the fussy babies again. Maybe I need to provide some fun fuzzy board books. Or learn to deal with distractions better. Or use this as an opportunity to push baby story time.
Wanda Gag'
s Millions of Cats didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. I only used it with the 3-5s upon seeing that others had done so in their story times, even though I knew there was a lot of text on each page and the pictures were tiny and detailed. I thought about blowing up the pages and using them faux- Kamishibai style (displaying one picture at a time and reading off the back) but was thwarted by the number of two-page spreads. Perhaps I'll try memorizing and just telling it. Or practicing the "hundreds of cats" etc. with everyone a few more times.
After Millions of Cats, even Kevin Henke's Kittens First Full Moon was a stretch for some of the 3-5 year olds. It was a little bit of a stretch for some of the younger kids too (what with competing with crying babies and latecomers walking in and all), but for this one I'm willing to say "It's good for them." I could stay inside this one for a long time. The parents were enthralled too, predicting what was going to happen next as if I were reading the story just to them (and I totally missed the opportunity to complement them on this and to talk about encouraging their kids to do the same! Ugh!) Maybe I need to work on my timing.
I was really surprised to see how everyone stayed with Marilyn Janovitz's Three Little Kittens. It helps that a lot of people already know the words (and I invited them to help) and that everyone can chime in on the "meow, meow, meow, meow" bits. Even though the illustrations in this one are a little on the greeting-card side, I chose it over Galdone's version because 1) I find Galdone's illustrations garish and not particularly appealing and 2) I like how Janovitz handled the last line about "smelling a rat nearby." I'll admit I had no clue that's how the complete version ended, and was really confused. The rest of the rhyme is all about mittens and pie. Where do the rats come in? Introduce something new at the very end and don't even follow up on it? Who writes these, anyway? Where they leaving it open for a sequel? (Three Little Kittens chase a rat and get bitten?) Janovitz's endpapers show a big-bellied rat next to an empty pie plate.
Denise Fleming's Mama Cat Has Three Kittens is nice and repetitive until the pattern suddenly reverses itself- participatory and funny.
Attack of the fussy babies again. Maybe I need to provide some fun fuzzy board books. Or learn to deal with distractions better. Or use this as an opportunity to push baby story time.
Wanda Gag'
s Millions of Cats didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. I only used it with the 3-5s upon seeing that others had done so in their story times, even though I knew there was a lot of text on each page and the pictures were tiny and detailed. I thought about blowing up the pages and using them faux- Kamishibai style (displaying one picture at a time and reading off the back) but was thwarted by the number of two-page spreads. Perhaps I'll try memorizing and just telling it. Or practicing the "hundreds of cats" etc. with everyone a few more times.
After Millions of Cats, even Kevin Henke's Kittens First Full Moon was a stretch for some of the 3-5 year olds. It was a little bit of a stretch for some of the younger kids too (what with competing with crying babies and latecomers walking in and all), but for this one I'm willing to say "It's good for them." I could stay inside this one for a long time. The parents were enthralled too, predicting what was going to happen next as if I were reading the story just to them (and I totally missed the opportunity to complement them on this and to talk about encouraging their kids to do the same! Ugh!) Maybe I need to work on my timing.
I was really surprised to see how everyone stayed with Marilyn Janovitz's Three Little Kittens. It helps that a lot of people already know the words (and I invited them to help) and that everyone can chime in on the "meow, meow, meow, meow" bits. Even though the illustrations in this one are a little on the greeting-card side, I chose it over Galdone's version because 1) I find Galdone's illustrations garish and not particularly appealing and 2) I like how Janovitz handled the last line about "smelling a rat nearby." I'll admit I had no clue that's how the complete version ended, and was really confused. The rest of the rhyme is all about mittens and pie. Where do the rats come in? Introduce something new at the very end and don't even follow up on it? Who writes these, anyway? Where they leaving it open for a sequel? (Three Little Kittens chase a rat and get bitten?) Janovitz's endpapers show a big-bellied rat next to an empty pie plate.
Denise Fleming's Mama Cat Has Three Kittens is nice and repetitive until the pattern suddenly reverses itself- participatory and funny.
Monday, May 12, 2008
2-3 and 3-5 storytime: Pig Out
My system doesn't require us to use themes. Indeed, we're (rightly) encouraged to lean toward books we and the kids love over books that fit any particular pattern. But the parents still ask what today's stories are about (and I still get excited about finding another cool dog book!)
Last week, upon discovering Angela Johnson's Julius, I went with pigs. Animal themes are easy. The book has bright, exciting funny illustrations. Books about Alaskan pigs are rare. Furthermore I'm always on the lookout for really good storytime books starring African-American kids. Unfortunately, I don't think this one counts, at least not for the 3-5 crowd. Julius teaches Maya and her parents a lot about life that might be a little over the head of your average 3 or 4 year old. The funny details in the pictures, too, are lost beyond the first few rows. Maybe I'll try it with a (smaller) group of older kids.
If anyone out there in publishing is reading: Please publish more 2-5 age story time books with African American main characters! By story time books, I mean books:
- with pictures identifiable from about ten feet away
- with no more than a few sentences on each page,
- that make kids and librarians fall in love with them.
If they are really big, or rhyme, or have lines that repeat, or invite fun sounds, or are actually written and/or illustrated by African American people, then so much the better.
There are quite a few out there that almost seem to fit (The adventures of Sparrowboy by Brian Pinkney and the Jamela books by Niki Daly come to mind for older kids), but they have too many words, or plots that are too complicated, or they just don't quite lend themselves to reading in story time (too many little "aside" words that don't flow when you're reading them aloud.)
I'm looking forward to doing Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats and "Please, puppy, please" by Spike Lee (!) for an upcoming doggy story time. We did I can do it too! by Karen Baicker a few months ago. If anyone has any other currently existing suggestions, let me know!
end rant/plea.
McPhail's Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore! Rings of Poe's "The Raven" and Dr. Seuss ("Get out, you pigs/ You pigs, get out!") If the rhyme and rhythm and ridiculousness doesn't interest them, "Pigs from England/ Pigs from France,/ Pigs in just/ Their underpants" is sure to get a reaction. I wanted to push the kids to take it home so they had time to examine the hoards of piggies and their misdeeds. I think it would have gone over better with the 3-5 year olds if I'd read it first. Too old for the 2-3s, after all, I think.
A Birthday for Cow was not too old. The little ones loved me shouting gleefully about turnips, and the adults laughed through the whole thing (which of course spurred the kids to laugh louder without really knowing why.) Didn't get as good a reaction from the 3-5 I think, but by that point all the baby siblings were fussing and everyone was a little distracted. (While the book is not about a pig, it does feature one. And hey, I've bee looking for an excuse to use it for
awhile.)I included Antoinette Portis' Not a Stick for the younger ones in lieu of Julius. The grown ups were shouting out what the stick was now each page, the kids were entranced. Sure they'd just heard Not a Box when my esteemed colleague did Bunny story time a few weeks ago, but no one seemed to mind.
Probably the most successful in both groups was "No Butterball" from Phyllis Noe Pflomm's Chalk in Hand: The Draw and Tell Book. Summary: A little girl named Charlotte looks everywhere for her pet pig and can't find her until she returns home and- surprise!- the pig appears on the chalk board on which you've been tracing Charlotte's journey. I re-dubbed Butterball "Snowball," because 1) Snowball is not a turkey and 2) the story indicates a pet pig, and "butterball" makes me think of groceries. If you'd rather, little Charlotte could be searching for Butterball in order to serve her at a luau, and the little mud puddle surrounding her at the end could be rendered as leaping flames. But I prefer to wait until they're ready for Charlotte's Web. The smaller kids didn't shout out "There's a pig!" until the very end; the older ones only let me get halfway through, but both had fun.
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