My book, Storytelling and Story-Reading in Early Years, published by Jessica Kingsley, has been receiving some good reviews and comment. If you’d like a copy just click on the appropriate button below.
I’ve also done an interview with Kathy Brodie which has had some very nice comments and which you can find on Early Years TV .
To buy your copy in UK/Europe, simply click the first button below and follow the instructions
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
This verse is just the first in the wonderful poem by William Blake which was one of my father’s favourites. He used to recite it to all his secondary school English classes.
It’s a poem that surely makes anyone who hears or reads it feel incredibly aware of the power and beauty of the tiger. And tigers have been in my mind over the last few days following the death of Judith Kerr, author of the hugely-loved children’s picture-book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea. I first got to know that book during the first four years of what would become my storytelling life. A leaflet on the notice board of Brixton Library had led to my applying for a job on the Lambeth Libraries Storytelling Scheme. How different my life would have been if I hadn’t got that job. Very part-time and very badly paid, it involved doing picture-books with young children in various Lambeth centres during the mornings and telling stories to older children in the afternoons. Read the rest of this entry »
Human minds! You see something, it reminds you of more. Since yesterday, it’s been frogs for me.
Going for a walk in Brockwell Park, all part of my recovery programme (and thanks to everyone for good wishes) we were greeted near the entrance by a very large wooden frog, arms endearingly outstretched towards us. Of course, this frog brought back to my mind all kinds of stories (well, it would, wouldn’t it?).
One was of Lil who used to live down the road with her sister Sarah. Lil would call out to you on the street, ‘Ere, Missis Whatsisname?’ Then she’d follow up with something like, ‘Yer got no idea what ’er upstairs as gorn an done now.’ On one occasion she came to my door and quietly murmured, ‘Sarah says as can you come down and get the frog (frog as in frawg) outa the kitchen.’ Of course I went armed with rubber gloves and a bucket. I remember it well.
Then there’s the little frog folk-tale I used to tell.
This week, my hair began falling out in bundles. An early consequence of the chemo. Not nice! Seeing the devastation, turbans was the thought that promptly came to my mind. First, I got out what I thought was a suitable scarf, twisted it around my balding bonk, saw that it looked a terrible mess that might fall apart any minute. What to do?
Google provided the answer. Up came numerous videos of lovely young women taking barely a minute to create stylish turbans out of beautiful scarves. I tried again and now it became quick and easy for me too.
So if and when we meet from now on, you’ll surely see me in a turban. Perhaps it will have to be my style for whatever is left of my life. Granted it’s a little bit time-consuming and cuts out the role of the hairdresser in my life. And since I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for almost half a century, that’s not nothing. But at least it deals with the hair-loss problem. Besides, turbans are different from hats. In my still small experience, they come out interestingly different each time. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s my second chemotherapy session on Tuesday. I do not look forward to it or its aftermath. But some nice things keep the spirits raised: kindnesses from friends, the freshly blooming Mary Rose in the garden, the pleasure of the Great Tit at finding our bird feeder tubs have been refilled and, of course, stories.
Whenever I read about the state of schools across the country – how some teachers are voluntarily buying food or books for children with money from their own pockets or, just as bad or worse, how so many teachers feel that all emphasis on creativity has been lost as a result of focus on exams – I find myself wanting the children to have more stories. Young people are disillusioned, turned off, self-harming, depressed. I want them to hear stories, do self-motivated work that is based on stories, talk about stories, tell their own stories. Who is a storyteller to say this should happen? Well, all of us storytellers who’ve seen what powerful effects it can have. Particularly this last week, I’ve been recalling the attention and engagement that hundreds of children have shown to the daftly innovative stories of Shemi Wâd.
The story that follows is one I found in the handwritten book of Shemi stories I was recently lent. The stories in it were written down by Bili John who had himself known Shemi since boyhood. He wrote down the stoies in Welsh. The one that follows is in my English version.
One day Shemi dug out from his garden a wooden box that contained what looked like the wheels of a clock. Shemi had never seen anything quite like these wheels before. They were very big – as large as saucers – and without more ado, he got ready to use them to make a clock. Read the rest of this entry »
It was raining. I was lying on my bed thinking about what I’d write in this blog this week. My mind (or whatever passes for it these days) was wandering about, touching on all kinds of things that happened this week. One was the visit of a friend, a local historian, who came to show and lend me two old manuscript books full of stuff about Shemi, that 19th century storyteller I was writing about last week. This reminded me of my father many years ago telling me about a handwritten exercise book full of Shemi stories that he’d been shown and then, suddenly addressing himself to the ether, asking: ‘I wonder where that book is now.’ Strange to think the book he was speaking about may now be in my house.
Yet another was the beautiful butterfly that had somehow got into my bedroom. I’d finally managed to urge it out of the window with the deft use of a sheet of newspaper. Read the rest of this entry »
The daffodils are over, the lovely bunch of tulips we were brought has withered, the roses in our garden are only just coming out. So here, instead, is a lovely camellia to wish you a happy Easter.
Easter brings so many things to mind. Holidays, chocolate, Easter bunnies, resurrection: may I wish you good experience of whatever takes your love, your interest or your fancy.
All I can add is that the sun is shining most liberally over us in Brixton. I hope it’s still shining over Pembrokeshire tomorrow. For if we can get ourselves going (and following my first chemo treatment for my current cancer this last Tuesday, getting going feels a bit hard), that’s where we’ll be headed.
How I look forward to the hedgerows, the beaches and the salt air! But wherever you will be tomorrow, my very best wishes for good things that you love and, as always, my thanks and appreciation that you’re reading this blog.
Some books sell thousands, millions, of copies. If you’re the author, it must be wonderful to experience such success. But to me right now, it feels like it’s the personal links that are the most wonderful thing.
In yesterday’s post arrived an envelope containing two hand-written postcards and a photograph. The photo was of two boys, Ethan and Isaac, standing in front of a gravestone. The two boys had written one each of the cards, the writing in both cases carefully done along pencil lines ruled onto the cards.
The boys were writing to tell me how much they’d enjoyed the stories in a book by the name of Shemi’s Tall Tales which I’d published a few years ago. The stories in the book were all ones originally told by an old North Pembrokeshire character known as Shemi Wâd. All of them are very daft and marvellous tales and in my experience of telling them in schools, they are especially loved by boys.
When you think about it, it’s sometimes very hard to say what makes a particular topic come to your mind. For instance, I have no idea what started me thinking about nightingales this morning. Not blackbirds but nightingales. Or perhaps instead of nightingales (plural) I should say nightingale (singular). For to my knowledge I’ve only ever encountered one. And it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
It was on the island of Iona off the north-west coast of Scotland. Paul and I were visiting Oban on the mainland (my maternal grandfather hailed from Oban). In the course of our visit, we took a trip across to Mull and thence on to Iona where we were able to spend a few days staying in a remote little guesthouse where, each night, our host would call upstairs to say that the electricity was about to go off because he was about to turn off the generator. Read the rest of this entry »
Are you familiar with the story of how the cat got its purr? I was reminded of it while thinking about the elegant black, beautiful cat who came up to our room in my husband’s arms a couple of days ago. Paul had been out on the doorstep, talking with our neighbour. Meantime, our front door was open, the cat emerged as if from nowhere and promptly walked into our house. Paul followed it in, picked it up and brought it up for my admiration.
Wow! The cat was obviously ‘owned’ – if ever a cat can be owned – with a smart collar and bell. He was in the most beautiful condition and at once I was reminded of all our past cats and how I’d like to have a cat again. After the death of Minky, our last lovely cat, we felt we couldn’t replace him with another. Then time went on and, several years later, we remain catless. Perhaps that beautiful black cat will bring about a change here. Who knows?
Meantime, that story of how the cat got its purr has winkled its way back into my mind. The story tells of how one of the animals, perhaps it was cat, somehow got hold of a big beautiful drum. Whoever he was, he loved to play it and when he did so at parties, the other animals were full of envy of the sounds it made. So envious did the other animals become that one of them – was it fox? – wanted to get it for himself. Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t remember now what prompted the idea. But a few days ago, Paul and I got the idea that we might both write about our fathers. He’d write about his, I’d write about mine and, since we were each very fond of the other’s, each of us would write a bit about that one too.
Of course this determination has set me off down memory lane, remembering all kinds of little incidents involving my father, the many stories he himself would tell and also his characteristic ways. These were very comparable to those described of the typical Irish storyteller in Frank Delaney’s lovely novel, Ireland. In other words, my father would always to be found sitting in his usual chair, waving his pipe around as he apparently casually asked you a question which he obviously intended to answer himself.
One of the stories my father loved to tell – and it often comes back to my mind – was one that happened during the Second World War. He was being invalided out of Italy and was very bored on the tanker on which he was being transported. As he would tell it, he was desperate to find a book to read – any book. By his account, he searched the whole of the ship, including the captain’s cabin. Nothing. Then one day, idling around on the deck, he noticed an iron ring sticking up out of the planks. Wondering why it was there, he bent down and pulled it. Under the trapdoor which came up was a small hideaway space and in that space there were two books. One was a book by Erich Maria Remarque. The other was Great Expectations. Read the rest of this entry »
