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. 

How to book a storyteller

A few years ago, I wrote a list of tips for public librarians who hire storytellers. For the most part, it works for other venues such as assemblies, Family Night events and festivals. 

First find a storyteller. Here are a few ways: Google "storyteller" and your state, search the directory at storyteller.net, contact your state arts commission (except in Kansas), or search the directory at the National Storytelling Network. Library systems, school assembly websites, and chambers of commerce are other places to look. Storytellers also advertise at booking conferences and showcases. Ask around--word of mouth is one of the best ways to find a storyteller, appropriately enough.

Not all storytellers tell stories to kids (it's certainly one of my specialties). Do a few minutes of research on the storyteller's website to understand their scope.

Call or e-mail the storyteller. Most performers will try to get back to you quickly. (By the way, if you e-mail me and I don't get back to you, use the contact form on my website. Sometimes e-mails go into the black hole and never get to me.)

Here are some specific questions to ask the performer, depending on your situation:

• Are you available on X date, at X time? If not (and if the date is fixed), can you recommend another storyteller?
• What is your fee? Does this include mileage and expenses?
• Are you comfortable working with X (ESL students, preschoolers, k-6, high schoolers, etc.)? 
• Do you have a limit on the number of listeners?
• Do you need a microphone?
• Can you work outdoors if need be?
• Do you need any special set up? Do you need a table? How much space do you need?
• What is the name we need to put on the check?
• Do you have a standard contract, or would you prefer that we send a letter of confirmation?
• Could you send a short blurb of your show, a bio and a .jpeg for publicity? (for libraries)
• Do you have a study guide for teachers? (for schools)
• Do you have a short introduction you’d like us to use?

Tell the performer about the venue. Will the performance be in the gym or cafeteria, in an auditorium, in the library? Will the listeners be on the floor, on chairs, at tables? 

Discuss the age range of the audience and the number of listeners expected. I know, public libraries often don' t know how big the audience will be.

As you discuss the fee, ask about block booking. For example, I give a lower price when I can book more than one performance or at multiple schools or libraries in the same day. 

Tell the performer the policy on payment (on the date of performances, within a month after performances, in advance, etc.). If you need the performer’s social security number or tax id number, or if you need them to fill out a W-9 form, ask for it at the time of the contract. Some performers ask for a deposit on booking. 

Discuss contingencies for bad weather and cancellation.

Many performers have recordings or books and welcome the chance to sell them after the show. If there is a policy against sales, be sure the performer knows. 

Verify the salient details on all contracts/letters of confirmation. Be sure the address of the venue is included (especially important if the venue is not the library), as well as a contact phone number for the day of the performance. Sign and return a copy of the contract.

A week before the performance, contact the storyteller to double-check details.

Ask the performer to arrive 20-30 minutes early. This saves you thinking you’ll have to come up with a program on the spur of the moment.

When the performer arrives, introduce yourself by name. Remember, you know who the performer is, but he or she may not know you. Have a bottle of water available for the storyteller and point out the location of the restrooms. 

Introduce the performer briefly. By doing this, you build enthusiasm for the performance and you have the opportunity to make any housekeeping announcements. 

At the end of the performance, lead the audience in thanking the performer. This lets everyone know the session is over.

If you and the rest of the audience enjoyed the performance, feel free to spread the storyteller's name around. We love referrals!

 

School performances in Peru, continued

You might think, from reading this blog, that I'm walking around Lima, eating and taking in the sights. In truth, I'm working hard. Having a great time, but working hard. Last week I told stories at four schools, in fifteen performances. That was a relatively light week.

First I went to Colegio Franklin Roosevelt, the American school.This is the first school where the librarians organized the storytelling, the way they often do in the US. I had a great time talking libraries (and everything else) with the librarians, John and Karen. It was clear that this friendly, busy library is a hub for the school.

Some of my performances were in the library itself, some in the small theater. The last group was fairly small, so the students grabbed big pillows and relaxed on the mats in the library. It's nice when that's possible.

After that I went to Colegio Santa Rita de Casia. Hmm, I must have left my camera back at the apartment, because I have no pictures of this pretty parochial school. The older kids especially seemed to like the story "Razzles," a new personal story I've been telling a lot on this tour.

On Thursday and then on Friday morning, I visited Villa Alarife. The first performance was outdoors under a canopy, in the space where the students have lunch. In between the shows, I noticed some unusual school pets:

Pet rocks (or maybe this was something else--either way, they were delightful).

Turtles! While I was having lunch, I saw one trying to join a basketball game. It was about the size of a large frying pan, moving step by step onto the court until a student gently picked it up and moved it out of the way.

Geese, safely behind a net. Or are these ducks? I always get those mixed up.

The kids here were very fun. Some of the little ones came to ask for autographs, and to try out their English. The older kids clearly understood everything and were enjoying themselves.

We had to rush out of the school on Friday to go to the next school, Newton College, in another part of Lima. Thank goodness it wasn't rush hour!

At Newton, I had just one session. These 11- and 12-year olds had been studying writing, including the use of the senses and narrative structure, so I skewed the stories in that direction. I told Laundry Soap to demonstrate one story structure, and Gramps' Appendix as an example of an anecdote. When I left, the kids stayed where they were, for a bit of writing.

Today is Monday, and after a busy weekend (I'll write more about that soon), I was up bright and early to go to Colegio Reina de los Angeles. This was the only all-girls school I've been to so far. I told stories to everybody, from age 6 to age 17. In a brilliant move, the teacher asked the oldest girls to help out with the youngest, so those helpers got to hear stories twice. This teacher, Molly, loves stories and has been working on storytelling with the girls. At the end of the last set, I gave them some advice, because they'll all be telling stories this school year. I wish I had more time (and energy) to answer more questions there.

This is the last week of the tour. I'll write about the final sessions, but not until I've written about last weekend. Right now, though, I'm going to bed.

Tips for Hosting a Family Story Night at Your School

Every now and then I like to write a how-to article for teachers, librarians and PTA/PTO members. Here's one!

Looking for a family event to build listening and literacy skills, encourage parent involvement, build the school community, and make the school library a more welcoming space for students and parents? Why not try a Family Story Night? Invite the students, their families, staff and a storyteller for an evening event in the library or the gym.

Family Story Nights can be great fun. Be prepared for some chaos, though. Kids are excited to be in school when it’s not regular school time. It’s natural for them to want to show their friends off to their parents and their parents off to their friends. The schoolday restrictions are easily forgotten. I clearly remember running full tilt down the hall at an evening event in fifth grade, something that was absolutely forbidden during school time. Students may need a little extra guidance about how to behave.

Who’s in charge? Be very clear from the start about who is in charge of the children. Parents often assume teachers are, while teachers assume parents are. It’s not the job of the storyteller, in any case.

• During the main event, request that families sit together.
• If parents start chatting among themselves, remind them gently that they need to be good examples to their children. Do not expect the storyteller to do this.
• If younger children create a disturbance, suggest the parents take them out of the performance for a short while.

Here are some ideas for Family Story Night. No need to do all of these; pick a few that will work for your school:

• Hire a professional storyteller with experience at this kind of event. Be sure you discuss the details, including payment, venue, contact info, sound system, estimated size of the audience and length of time the storyteller will perform. Usually 30-45 minutes is appropriate, depending on the attention span of the audience. Remember that there will be a range of ages, from preschoolers up through grandparents at the event.
• Invite the kids to come in pajamas and to bring blankets or sleeping bags. (Not all storytellers enjoy this, so be sure you’ve discussed it in advance.) Teachers and librarians may join in. Kids think it’s funny to see their teachers in bathrobes.
• Suggest that the students bring a favorite book, and for about 15 minutes before the storytelling, invite the family groups to read together—kids reading to parents, parents reading to kids, kids reading to younger siblings. Have extra picture books available.
• Give tours of the school library before or after the storytelling.
• Allow students attending to borrow extra books from the school library. Be sure you have enough staff or parent volunteers available to check the books out at the time.
• Ask the students to decorate the school in advance with hand-drawn posters of books they love.
• Take pictures of teachers with their favorite books to decorate the gym or library.
• Invite the public librarian to come and say hello.
• Provide snacks for the very end of the program, as the kids are going out the door. Please, don’t serve snacks before or during the stories!
• Solicit local businesses for funds to provide a book for every family.
• Give out bookmarks.
• Invite the local TV and newspaper reporters to cover the Family Story Night.
• Make sure the event is over by 8 p.m. so children will be rested for school the next day!

For another take on Family Story Nights, check out storyteller Sue Black’s blog post, Pajama Night Delight.

Family Literacy Nights in Mexico

I often perform at Family Literacy Nights in the US--I've got one coming up this Thursday in Wamego, KS. I had three in Mexico last week, at two branches of the same school in Monterrey.

The first show was difficult, in large part because of the setting. It was in a big echoing room, with many small children who didn't understand enough English to care what I was doing up by the microphone. I realized too late that I should have asked the parents to sit with the children. I think the librarians were as dismayed as I was.

The next one was that very night, at the same school. Fortunately, we moved to a smaller, cozier room and there were only a couple of tiny children who sat easily with their parents. It was a completely different experience!

As the families came in, I played with the kids, getting them to sing "Twinkle, twinkle," "The ABC song," and "Baa baa, black sheep," all at once. When I began the show, I discovered that the students were great fans of Robert Munsch. They knew some of my favorite Munsch stories, such as Moira's Birthday and Stephanie's Ponytail. I told one they knew and one they didn't, then went on to my own stories. We had a fabulous time! I even got a fan letter from one of the parents the next day (hello, Adriana!).

At the end, as often happens at Family Nights, kids came up to say goodbye to Trixie:

The next night I was at the other branch of the school. They've had more Family Nights, so the families knew what to expect. Here are a few pictures from that session:

The parents were wonderful listeners as well.

At the end, kids came up to ask for my autograph. We were in a hurry to get to the airport to fly back to Mexico City, but there was still time to sign a few. Trixie didn't sign, though--she's left-handed while I'm right-handed, so it would have taken more time.
Here's the real payoff for a Family Literacy Night: kids checking books out of the library after the stories. At this branch, the children are told they can borrow extra books if they come to the event. As a former librarian, this makes me very happy.

Summer Reading for Grownups

Libraries are busy in this financial climate. As the ALA poster in the Springfield Town Library said in the late 70s and early 80s, when I worked there, "Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries."

I spend my summers traveling from library to library, telling stories for summer reading programs. I love seeing kids get excited about reading and coming to the library. This summer for the first time, I joined the adult reading program at my library. The theme is "Master the Art of Reading." The challenge was to read four books that were about art.

Here's what I read:


I blogged about The Music Teaching Artist's Bible last week. Lots to chew on.

The Venetian's Wife is by Nick Bantock, who does a charming combination of correspondence, illustration, collage and diary entries to create a compelling story. I'd say more but I don't want to ruin it for you. Fun!

I listened to The Vanished Smile on CD. I probably should have borrowed the book, as I found myself annoyed by the reader. For me, the success of a recorded book depends greatly on the reader. The topic was interesting, if the delivery was not--it's the account of the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911.

I began with part II of Manu Larcenet's graphic novel Ordinary Victories, and then went back to read part I (that's why I have five books on my list). It's a very French bande dessinée (loosely, comic book) for grownups, about a photographer and his life struggles. I enjoyed it very much.

Today I took my completed form to the library and was given a bag of swag: a note cube, a pencil, a small Be creative @ your library notepad, and coupons for several arts-related events, stores and restaurants in town. Now my name will be entered for the Big Prize (I forget what it is).

I don't need incentives to read. It's what I do. Still, it's nice that the library encourages grownups as much as kids.

Selling out?

At first I was disgusted. Not another public-private partnership, with the Johnson County Library shilling for some big company, selling out to The Man. I took a picture to document my outrage. Then I saw another truck and the penny dropped.



Ohhh, it's a joke, and a clever one at that. You can read more about it on the JCL website.

School inappropriate stories

I offer many different storytelling programs on themes perfect for schools and libraries, such as stories from books, world folktales, stories about wise choices, etc. While I know that kids rarely care about themes as long as I tell engaging stories, adults often prefer to have a specific program. When they don't, I offer Storyteller's Choice, in which I look at the audience and decide what stories would be the best for them in that moment.

I have a lot of stories in my repertoire that are not appropriate for schools and libraries. Many of these stories are about bodily functions. If I told those tales in schools, not only would I probably not be invited back, I'd lose control of the audience and never be able to regain it.

Still, these stories, such as Abu Hassan's Fart, are fun to tell and to listen to. At long last, I've decided to offer a program including them. Here's the blurb from my newly-revamped program list:

School Inappropriate Stories
(all ages) No, these aren’t x-rated stories, just tales of poo, farts, devils and other mild taboo subjects. You’ve been warned!

I'll be curious to see if I get hired to perform this program. 

Summer plans

Today is not the day to be barefoot. Cold, cold, cold outside. 

I have a fire in the woodstove, so of course it's time to think about summer reading programs. This is the season when libraries start to book my programs. The theme is "Be Creative @Your Library." I'm considering what to offer. Normally I only offer one show that specifically fits the summer theme, but I'd like to do two this year. One will be Hopping on one foot, singing games and story stretches for all ages.  Once when I was giving the related workshop for adults, somebody referred to it as "storytelling aerobics." We move around a lot, no matter how much space there is. 

I'm not sure what the second program will be. Storytelling is inherently creative. Should I just pick one of my favorites, like Silly Stuff, or What book is that story from? or should I think up a new program? 

Any suggestions? 

Ants, and other comments on creepy crawlies

Last night I performed the puppet show of The goat in the chili patch for the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. I changed my mind about the ant puppet I'd made, using instead a truly icky plastic ant I painted red:


The choice of the paintbrush to show scale isn't random. I used the paintbrush as a rod for the ant, so my fingers wouldn't be visible. It worked. The daughter of one of the librarians last night noticed that I used a paintbrush, so I told her how I look around my house in search of useful stuff when I'm working on a show. This was as she was helping me pack up. She said, "I like helping famous people." I love that.

I've had some funny additions to the show. On Tuesday in Hiawatha, as I was explaining that removing the animals from the old lady who swallowed the fly (via an opening at the top of her back) was a delicate operation requiring a surgeon's hand, a young boy asked, "Did you scrub?" Yes, indeedy. Then last night in Topeka, at about the same point, two girls (ages around 6 and 7) started making beeping noises. "Ah, the hospital monitors are working well."

When I tell The goat in the chili patch, I ask the kids which animals came to tell the goat to get out of the garden. The usual suspects turn up--pigs, chickens, sheep. Sometimes they suggest tigers and lions. It works just as well. In the puppet show with stage, I even put a lion puppet in.

This is a good summer reading theme. I'm a bit tired, having done 33 shows since May 30 (yes, some days have more than one show), but I'm still having fun. That's key.

Going to the library

I've got a meeting up on the university campus this afternoon. I'll take the opportunity to go to the library to browse. That's one of my great pleasures, browsing in libraries of all kinds. At the KU library, I love going into the old Dewey Decimal stacks to wander through the holdovers from before the library converted to the Library of Congress Classification. I spend most of my time downstairs in Anschutz in 398.2, where folktales and fairy tales live. Or maybe they just sleep, until I breathe them back to life.

I'm a little worried, though. Space is a perennial problem in libraries and it is only a matter of time before those Dewey books get put deeper into storage. Their home in Anschutz is already partial exile. If they go into full exile, I'll still be able to find them by using the catalog, but that's not the same as browsing, flipping through a collection of stories, finding one that will be just right to tell. It might be the sixth or seventh time I look at a book before a story hits me just right.

Even as I write this, I remember that it has been a few months since I went up to Anschutz--what if the books are gone already, locked up never to see the light of day? I mourned the day that I discovered that my favorite volumes in that section were only available to be borrowed overnight, instead of the regular loan period of six months, because they're periodicals. That was the Revue des traditions populaires, a French publication from about 1884-1911. I'm pretty sure I was the only person to use them.

Off to the library to see what I can find.