Exciting! A fat envelope in the post contained a bundle of stories – sequels to my Yellow Blob story from a class of children in Roch School in Pembrokeshire. The class teacher had started telling stories (as opposed to reading them) after coming on one of my Storytelling Courses. She’s had great success. Last year, her class got really intrigued after she’d passed on the story of Skomar Oddy, the giant that lives in the Preseli hills. A deputation came to her: ‘Miss, can we go up to the Preseli hills to look for Skomar Oddy?’ Brilliantly, she organised it all and I went too. It was one of those days you never forget.

The devastation in Japan has made me think about a marvellous Japanese woman who came into my life some years ago when I was editing a booklet about Eileen Colwell, the pioneer English storyteller and children’s librarian. During several visits in the course of her long career, Eileen had made an enormous impact on children’s librarians in Japan. and Kyoko Matsuoka,  the enterprising founder of Tokyo Children’s Library, the first children’s library in Japan, had become a great admirer and friend. (more…)

What’s new? Jamie Oliver’s Dream School (last night on Channel 4) tackled an urgent and difficult problem. Trouble was his celeb teachers appeared to know nothing at all about teaching, let alone dealing with the kinds of youngsters Jamie Oliver set up Dream School to help – youngsters who’d become completely disenchanted with education to the extent of truanting, being sent to Pupil Referral Units and ending their school careers with nothing. I bet most storytellers who go into schools could have done a whole lot better.

What’s new for me? This Tuesday, 1st March, at a fabulous St David’s Day celebration at the London Welsh Centre, I told my special story…….. (more…)

Trafford this week gave a real welcome for storytelling. The ECAT launch was buzzing. Rachael and Emma are doing a great job of organising. I hope lots of schools sign up. My previous experience with ECAT schemes is that they’re very supportive, enabling participants to focus on things that really matter – like oral storytelling! It opens up ways of talking with children, gets away from their fear of giving ‘incorrect’ responses, reaches out to parents too and, for everyone who take up the challenge, makes stories the fun they really should be. (more…)

My latest book is out. Stories for Young Children and How to Tell Them! is for anyone who wants to tell stories to children up to about 8 years of age. Buy the book from my website (see My Publications) and you can get it for my special price of £16.99 and free postage and packing instead of £19.99. It’s got stories, rhymes, chants, imagination games – and great colour illustrations. It’s also got my CD tucked inside. That’s with me telling all the stories and chants in the book with magical accompaniments by children’s musician Bill Roberts.

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Back in St David’s last week, I was handing out prizes for a story-writing competition organised by St David’s City News. A good number of children had entered, Primary and Secondary, English and Welsh. Entrants had to make some kind of link with St David’s or the area. Spooky stories prevailed. They were fun. The ancient magic of the area was present again in new and surprising forms. Why don’t more places hold similar events?

Hello to any St Cuthbert Mayne children reading this. I had such a great day with you yesterday. When I walked into your hall in the morning and saw your brilliant Arts Week displays, my mind started buzzing with all the links to stories I know. The display about bees? That reminded me of the riddle: ‘What does a person have in his eye if he has a bee in his hand? ‘ You gave some fantastic answers – a tear, a sting, a reflection of the bee etc. And I really loved telling you the answer – ‘Beauty, for beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ Then there were the elephants …I loved telling the Ganesh story in one of our sessions (was that Year 4?) and showing you my book called Elephant Luck.  So many stories …Shemi stories, the Chinese Fan story, the African story of Kabebe going to find out where the sun goes to bed and coming back with a loaf of Sun Bread. There was the story of my mug going to Italy (Forgetful Francesco and Mug Man were my favourite titles you gave it). In all the Year groups, we had such fun. Special thanks to Year 6 children who said such lovely things to me about my telling of The Magic Tapestry story. One of you said that when the tapestry came to life in the story, it was like it was coming to life in the hall where we were. You all listened so deeply, it made my day feel tremendously worthwhile. It convinces me that stories are vital.

And thanks too to all the staff who made my day so welcoming and especially Mrs Bance for inviting me and looking after me all day long. (more…)

It’s not necessarily easy to tell stories to the Under-Fives. Some people find it a nightmare, others find it very hard work to keep the children interested. I sympathise! It’s not necessarily something that comes naturally, especially if you didn’t get told stories as a child and you haven’t got any role-models. Far too few opportunities exist for adults to discover the tricks of the trade with the Early Years age-group.  Yet courses and workshops can be so productive. Apart from anything else, they open up a great opportunity to share rhymes and chants and stories that work (see below for some examples I collected from a great group of people in Cardiff on Saturday.) (more…)

Welcome to my blog. One main idea behind this blog is for people to share their experiences of storytelling without a book. So if you’re reading this after any of my workshops, do write a reply to say what it was like if you tried out any of my stories. Did the children like it? What did they say? And how did you feel about it? Were you scared? Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing workshops with teachers and Nursery Nurses in Barnet – there’s more to come over the next couple of weeks – (more…)

National Storytelling Week is starting. Tomorrow I’m off to Swansea to tell Shemi stories at the National Waterfront Museum. Next week, there’s lots more work in Barnet following the first day of my new programme of work there this Wednesday. More on that later – it was great to tell stories with very responsive classes and to talk with some very interested and responsive teachers. (more…)