My new book, Storytelling and Story-Reading in Early Years, published by Jessica Kingsley, is now out.
Review in Child in Our Midst Newsletter by Mary Hawes:
“This readable, practical book not only provides tools for getting the best out of storytelling and reading sessions, but encourages parents to tell the stories of their family to their children. There’s even tools to help you deal with the horror of forgetting the story you’re telling! Well worth having on your bookshelf (but don’t leave it there – read and reread it!).
“What a cracking little book!!!!”
To buy your copy in UK/Europe, simply click the first button below and follow the instructions
‘Not in my name’ is the phrase that has frequently come into my mind of late. Now what often arrives there is simply ‘No’. Especially to Donald Trump, his appalling treatment of migrants and children, his dismissal of so many vital issues such as protecting the environment and his ignorant rudeness, including to Teresa May (whose policies I also cannot abide).
Yesterday was the day of protest. Trump vaingloriously trumpets his ownership of so many properties in Scotland and Ireland (thankfully not Wales) and seems to feel boastful pride in acknowledging that there will be public outcry against him. That’s no reason not to protest. Read the rest of this entry »
This week, down in Pembrokeshire, I saw a boy sitting on a stone pillar at the back of Abereiddi beach. He was probably about 10 years old, in his hands was a book, a proper book, and he was reading. When we left the beach an hour or two later, he was still there, still reading. The sight felt emblematic to me of those things that make me feel joyful.
On Thursday evening on S4C (that’s the Welsh channel), there was an equally hope-inspiring item on a programme about the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. A choir from Indonesia was performing and a background item from Indonesia itself focused on a school where dance and music and other arts items play as prominent a part in the curriculum as any other subject. I think it was the Principal of the school who, in an interview, said how important the arts are considered to be all over her country. ‘We feel they give the children sensitivity.’ Read the rest of this entry »
Last week it was bags. This week it’s rags, namely things which are so well-worn that, in times gone by, they were generally only good for passing on to the rag-and-bone man. One such used to come round our streets with his horse and cart collecting big old items such as an old mattress and bags full of unwanted small items too. I remember the tone of his cry though I never worked out quite what he was saying.
My well-worn stuff this week is a joke, one which has been told so many times by me that it could well qualify as good only for the rag-and-bones man except that it possesses the extraordinary quality of still being able to make people laugh. Read the rest of this entry »
Handbag, sandbag, eyebag, party bag … Bags have always been a passion of mine to the extent that, these days, creating birthday cards to send to friends, I attribute them to Old Bag Productions. I suppose my passion began long ago: taking part in Eisteddfod competitions as children, we’d be given beautiful little lace-edged bags, a coin inside, as prizes. Afterwards I’d hang mine from the mirror on the dressing table in my bedroom.
Bags can be fascinating in themselves – ‘Why have you got that bag, Miss?’ – and that’s one of the strongest reasons I’ve always loved them in my storytelling work, and not only when working with children. But also the fact that you’re carrying a bag naturally leads on to more. So much can go into bags, so much come out. A beautiful cloth, an endearing soft toy, a strange sound-making instrument. Or maybe what emerges is another smaller bag with, inside it, a collection of objects for a particular story. Read the rest of this entry »
The Happy Prince is the new film by Rupert Everett. It took him ten years to get it off the ground and last night was its opening night. We went to see it at the Curzon cinema in Victoria (small and extremely comfortable). The film deals with the last wretched years of Oscar Wilde’s life after he was released from Reading Gaol where he had been imprisoned for ‘acts of gross indecency’. Since homosexuality was legalised, Oscar Wilde could not have been so cruelly punished.
Some of the most touching scenes in the film are where Oscar Wilde is telling stories to children. Early on, it’s to his own two little boys. Later, it’s to two French boys who spend time around him during his exile. The story he tells them is one of his own, The Happy Prince. Read the rest of this entry »
It sounds odd to say it. But it was so. In the early days of what became the Storytelling Revivalin the UK, there was a distinct whiff of opposition to writing. Storytelling was, and is, very different from reading aloud and different too from writing: we storytellers felt at that time that, in public at least, we had to proclaim, reveal and uphold the differences.
By now, a good number of well-known storytellers in the UK – Hugh Lupton, Sally Pomme Clayton, Daniel Morden among them – have published books. I’ve published books too, nine in all, and I feel I can now admit to enjoying both the differences and similarities between the two forms. Read the rest of this entry »
What is it about doing something new that you’ve never done before? The nerves? Worry that you’ll mess it up? Thursday morning I was to do an interview on Skype with Kathy Brodie who runs and presents Early Years TV. I’d not heard either of her or Early Years TV until a recent email relating to the promotion of my new book.
Early Years TV offers a weekly interview done by Kathy with all kinds of people who do early years work. When I got in touch with her after the email from my indefatigable Marketing Manager at Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Kathy said yes to my being one of her interviewees. It would be an interview about storytelling and it would happen via Skype at a mutually convenient date and time, the resulting video to appear on Early Years TV at some as yet to be scheduled date in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
Back from Corfu this afternoon, I sat in our kitchen mentally numbering, in no particular order, the most memorable things about the week.
The sun – not too, too hot, so wonderful
The sea – gentle and warm and ideal for numerous swims
Two huge storms with prolonged sheet lightning and much noise of thunder
The reading – four excellent novels
The delightful, friendly taverna right next to our apartment
The relaxing except for much concentrated observation of the comings and goings of the pair of swallows whose nest was high up on our patio.
And so much else besides. But it’s those swallows that, for me, became the most fascinating feature of our week. I spent hours never quite succeeding in getting the photos I wanted. The one above will have to do. See you again, I hope, next week. Read the rest of this entry »
“We never thought of telling him a story”: the comment came from a smiling young couple with a boy in a pushchair after a talk I’d given at a nursery school. It will always ring in my mind. Stories, memories, family tales: they are not always happy but they are always important.
Going on holiday
As for actual events … well, by the time you read this blog, dear reader, I will be in Corfu. Hooray! A whole week’s holiday, hopefully in lovely warm sun. The weather forecast for Corfu seems pretty confident it’s going to be glorious there. But whatever the weather it’ll be time to read, swim, lie about, be reminded of the taste of ouzo and perhaps make one or two forays to admire the scenery. Read the rest of this entry »
Dear blog reader, I hope that what happened to me this morning doesn’t often happen to you. I came to some kind of consciousness far too early, mind in an absolute spin. Still half asleep, I watched the spin going round, like watching clothes in the washing machine or feeling my mind had turned into a tangle.
A family funeral:
One item in the mix was the funeral in Plymouth on Thursday of an older cousin of Paul’s. During the service a fine account of his life was given by one of his sons. It included a vivid account of a glorious goal his father had scored in a football game in his young days. His other son picked up on that love of sport. Matching the story of the glorious goal, he told about how, on the whim of a moment while on a holiday on the Isle of Man, his father not only entered an 800 metre race that was about to be run but, shoeless and with rolled up trousers, actually won it to the roaring acclaim of the crowd. Read the rest of this entry »
My new book, Storytelling and Story-Reading in Early Years, published by Jessica Kingsley, is now out.
