Cell phone videos

Last week I gave a workshop on story hour stretches, games and songs for the Children's Services librarians at the Kansas City (MO) Public Library. I LOVE working with librarians, partly because I am still one to my core, even though I haven't worked as a librarian since 1994. It's not the diploma that proves it (though I have one). It's in my DNA. You laugh? Here's a quote from a piece my mother wrote about her mother-in-law, not officially a librarian but...

Like her father before her, she chose the books for Bristol's Rogers Free Library, and read most of them first. (Some categories she shunned, letting other Library people choose the romances and Westerns.)

Granny Howe referred to those as trashy novels, my father said. All but those were delivered to the house before they ever got to the library.

Sidetracked. Isn't this post about videos? One of the librarians at the Westport Branch sent me links for four videos she put on Youtube. Keep in mind that these were taken on a cell phone!

You can see another of the librarians recording the workshop on her iPad, so there may be more videos to come. 

A few quotes on storytelling

Frankie Bacon, earlier this spring when the daffodils were out. There is no real reason for this or the other pictures in this post. I just thought you might like them. 

Ah, the old ploy: when you can't think of what to write, borrow from somebody else. Here are a few good storytelling quotes. I'll add more next time I'm flailing around for blog topics.

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.--Muriel Rukeyser.

I can only answer the question "What am I to do?" if I can answer the question "Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"--Alasdair MacIntyre

All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.--Isak Dinesen

The healing touch of storytelling reaches deeply into the listener's heart as well, indelibly imprinting there the mark of the story and its message, weaving the listener into the dance of community.--Richard Stone

Because there is a natural storytelling urge and ability in all human beings, even just a little nurturing of this impulse can bring about astonishing and delightful results.--Nancy Mellon

Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.--Robert McKee.

And one of my all-time favorites:

The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for each other.--Barry Lopez in Crow and Weasel.

Frankie with gargoyle, in contemplation. 

Francis Bacon has made a nest in the coreopsis. Silly cat!