I worked at our "downtown" branch recently.  After helping a middle-aged woman find some books on "recovery" and some religious music, she shared with me a personal story as well as the Cherokee tale about "the two wolves inside of me."  ... another commonality of humanity -- the fight within us all ... 

Here's a Youtube telling:

Improving Your Storytelling Skills

Leafing through Doug Lipman's Improving Your Storytelling Skills, I came away with two reminders and a new thought.

Lipman reminded me about the importance of consciousness during the storytelling experience: "Notice the humanity of the audience." (174) This subdues fear and creates a successful experience for all.

He reminded me that "good storytelling always incorporates other art forms" and that each of us has a way of storytelling that is natural to us.

Related to this conscious, natural form of storytelling comes the new thought ... Instead of planning to tell a story, have you ever waited for a story from your repetoire to "call" to you?  Not only does this make me feel the smallness of my repetoire, but it stretches the teller to rely on previous practice and the art of free flow telling.

It's another goal to aspire toward!

Charles R. Smith Jr. (Virginia Hamilton Conference)

To paraphrase, Charles R. Smith Jr., in true multicultural literature, every individual grows.  For him, it appears that photography and writing, particularly poetry ("finding the right words, not necessarily fancy or long or rhyming"), is the mode for individual and societal sharing and ultimately, growth.

During his presentation at the 2011 Virginia Hamilton Conference on April 8, he performed his poems and shared his life; As a child, "I turned to books ... to help me fly" (from track 10 on About Me) and became inspired by various artistic and noteworthy African Americans (see track 11 from Inspirations), including Ms. Nikki Giovanni, who was also a speaker at the conference.

He is a phenomenal performer and witty wordsmith (you'll get his flavor as you listen to track fifteen "I Am a Poet - a Capella"), but I wish I could have recorded and put his presentation on Youtube.  When I got Portrait of a Poet signed (only MP3 downloads are available on Amazon), I did ask if he had already put performances on Youtube.  He answered that he hadn't but that they may have been posted by others.  While I haven't found such poem performance videos, here is a link to Simon and Schuster's Youtube video where he discusses his 2010 Coretta Scott King Award (illustration) book My People.  You can also view a still of the performance in my photo collection below.

One of his last thoughts was, "We are all made up of a variety of things that make us human beings."
 
Thank you for your work, Mr. Smith.

Children Who Are Not Spoken To ... (Quote)

Quoted in Storytelling: Art and Technique 4th ed. By Ellin Greene and Janice M. Del Negro p. 129

“Children who are not spoken to by live and responsive adults will not learn to speak properly. Children who are not answered will stop asking questions. They will become incurious. And children who are not told stories and who are not read to will have few reasons for wanting to learn to read.”

Gail E. Haley's Caldecott Award acceptance for A Story, A Story in Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1966-1975, ed. Lee Kingman (Horn Book, 1975) p. 225.

Patricia Polacco, the Ultimate Storyteller (Video)

Patricia Polacco is an illustrator, writer, and storyteller who captivated the Mazza 2010 Summer Institute audience with personal, historical vignettes.  She touched the audience to tears with her themes of loving relationships, abounding beauty, learning and educational challenges, and heroism.

Below is Ms. Polacco sharing her family's four (or more?) generational "keeping quilt."

Image from Amazon.  Notice the Sydney Taylor Book Award in the upper right hand corner.

Kamishibai, Japanese Paper Theater (Video)

Hazuki Kataoka shares the folktale Momotaro the Peach Boy at the American Library Association 2010 Annual Conference using the "Japanese kamishibai format." "Kami" means "paper," and "shibai" means "theater."

 

(Yes, I took this video.)

Notes for creating your own kamishibai taken from Kamishibai Story Theater: The Art of Picture Telling by Dianne de las Casas:

• first card’s text goes on back of last card
• second card’s text goes on back of first card
• use 11x15 or 14x22 paper

Storyteller and REFORMA President (Video)

Cuban native Lucia M. Gonzalez shares her noche (night) story, complete with cucullos. After introducing herself this way, she retold Bossy Gallito.  Gonzalez opened for brain scientist Patricia Kuhl, hence Gonzalez's hint at phonological awareness (having the audience repeat the sounds in words).

(Yes, I took this video.)