Storytelling Starters ~ Feast
Storytelling Cookbook was the title I gave the first little book I put together with stories for children and hints on telling them. No doubt the name came to mind because I can’t help thinking of cooking and eating in connection with storytelling. Listening to stories or people talking about them just feels like participating in a feast. A traditional Scandinavian tale-ender gives the idea another twist:
‘And all I know is, that if they are not yet done feasting, then they are probably at it still.’
In other words, when a story ends well, it’s not hard to imagine the characters in it sitting long into the night , chewing things over in more ways than one. When I’m finishing a story with children, I often bring in that idea of eating afterwards – it’s a little bit of a tease.
A tale from India
For instance, in that marvellous Indian tale, Bhambhutia, (you can find it in The Singing Sack by Helen East), an old lady is threatened with being devoured on her way through the forest to visit her daughter.
The story describes how she succeeds in getting back home inside a life-size clay pot she constructs. But the old lady is clever enough to stay in the pot till the animals who still want to eat her have gone to sleep and are snoring around her. It’s when she hears their snores that the old lady knows it’s safe to climb out and quickly run into her house. But that’s not quite the end of the story. Next morning, she gives the pot its reward for bringing her safely home. Either it can go round the world or it can stay with her.
It’s a good point for a bit of discussion. In my experience, lots of children say they’d choose to go round the world – and in multi-ethnic Britain, many say they’d visit the countries where their families originated. Equally, lots of children decide that, if they were the pot, they’d stay at home with the old lady. We talk about it. Then I end the discussion like this: ‘Well, in the story, it says the pot decided to stay with the old lady. And I know that’s what it did because the last time I went to have tea with her, it was still there.’
The proof of the pudding – Kensington Palace revisited
The proof of the storytelling pudding lies in the eating. Thursday was the 6th session of my Kensington Palace storytelling course for parents. It was intended as an opportunity to reflect on what has happened up till now and what might happen after this. The parents’ reports provided a feast.
First came a report from two of the mums who, a few weeks ago, went together to Chelsea Library to tell their stories. The visit had been arranged by our course-organiser at Kensington Palace. The audience was a class of 6 – 7 year olds from a local school. I felt so proud hearing these two mothers relate what happened when they got there. Everything they said made it apparent how much they’d absorbed from the course. How to arrange themselves, choosing low chairs; how to speak with the children; how to gain and hold interest; questions, pauses, props, refrains – and all this after just 5 sessions on the course, 10 hours in all. They said the children had been wonderful: they’d listened and responded brilliantly. But what was best of all for me was to hear how much the two tellers had enjoyed themselves too.
Equally moving was a report from another mum. This mum’s elder daughter is only five years old and it appears that, up to now, she has been very quiet at school – so quiet that last year her mother was called in to school on several different occasions to talk about the child’s shyness.
What a turn up for the books! Since coming on the course, the mother has been storytelling with her children and this has brought some stirring effects. At a recent show-and-tell session in school, the little girl got up, went out the front and told the whole class the story of Mrs Wiggle and Mrs Waggle, which is one story we’d done on the course. The teacher, naturally, was delighted. But that’s not the end of it. As well as continuing to come out of herself at school, the little girl has also been storytelling at home to her younger sister, sitting the toddler down in front of her to do so. Besides, she has announced to her mother, ‘I’m a storyteller now.’
For some children – and for some adults – telling a story is a good and easier way of communicating. Maybe that’s because it does not feel so personally revealing as talking directly about yourself.
Funnily enough – to come full circle with this week’s metaphor – this may be why a lot of mothers I’ve worked with find that a very good time for telling stories is when they’re in the kitchen preparing a meal. It’s something about the sideways-on approach that can make it very effective.
What next?
Next week we’re to have an extra session at the Palace. We will be talking about how the parents who came on the course might take things on in the future. Developing more stories to tell? A school storytelling club for younger children? More storytelling visits to the local libraries? We’ve already discussed what’s to be on the menu. Next Thursday we’ll see what appeals.
Tags: Bhambhutia, Chelsea Library, eating, Helen East, Kensington Palace, The Singing Sack