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Saturday, January 28, 2017

Summer Reading to Build a Better World

Who is as frustrated as the proverbial "one-armed paper hanger"?  A puppeteer with her arm in a cast!  Yes, I'm talking about myself.  O.k I can still tell stories and have several programs this month and next even while a shocking pink cast protects my broken wrist.  Since all are historical programs where I wear long sleeves, I worried and checked.  What a great relief to find they all fit, especially my World War I "Hello Girls" uniforms!  Also a friend pointed out it would be appropriate using a sling to cover up that non-historical, but hysterical pink.
(No, this isn't a picture of me with a broken wrist)

After so many years as a children's librarian, I can't help it, January and winter weather always gets me thinking about Summer Reading Programs.  I'm so glad I won't have to wait until summer for my cast to come off!  My summer program last year had me and Priscilla Gorilla cheer reading, and we will again, although this year with stories supporting the 2017 “Build a Better World” multi-state summer reading program theme.  The program's title is "Cheering You On to Build a Better World with Stories from Many Lands."  The stories deal with the important ideas of cooperation, friendship, and stopping bullying.  Many include audience participation to help young readers make the stories their own and easily carry the ideas away with them.  As for the use of puppet sidekicks, such as Priscilla Gorilla, it lets an audience join in more intimate fun than is possible in a large assembly program.

You can already find some of those cheers, the ones related to reading and libraries, here on this blog. That program from last year is always a great program for reading and fits both schools and summer reading.  Some will still be used because they're about reading..  With one hand unavailable for puppetry, now is the perfect time to create some additional cheers about cooperation, friendship, and stopping bullying as we work to Build a Better World.  Since even typing is currently slowed down I used a lot here from my website about summer reading programs because my hand is still quite sore.  Since my handwriting now is even worse than my typing, I'd love to have my readers send me their own cheers on cooperation, friendship, stopping bullying and any other ways for young summer readers to Build a Better World.  I'll gladly credit you for your creations.  This blog doesn't tend to provoke controversy, it's not my style, so comments here are fairly rare, although, because I also announce it on Facebook and Twitter, comments tend to come there and in my email.  However they may reach me, I think these ideas are truly needed.  Building a Better World is something to cheer. 
My webpage I mentioned tends to be more of a sales page and I notice something there which probably also should be mentioned here: I qualify for Michigan grant funding as I'm in the Arts & Humanities Touring Directory (on page 52).  Beyond that I'm still very much a librarian and I understand library budget limitations.  Aside from thinking very creatively about ways to finance a program, if there is any way I can work with a library's budget, I promise to do so.

Fortunately I already put together a list of stories and two books I highly recommend to help you in your own storytelling to Build a Better World: 

Ladies First



Tippingee 



A Strange Friendship  (Marlu & Willie Wagtail)



The VIBs 



Tops & Bottoms 



Brementown Musicians  



Cat & Mouse Who Shared a House 



The Elephant & the Dog (Jataka) 



Old Joe & the Carpenter 



Bird in the Hand 



Difference Between Heaven & Hell



Test of Friendship  (Syria)



Filling the House


All the stories in Margaret Read MacDonald’s book, Peace Tales, also helpful is Bobby and Sherry Norfolk’s book, The Moral of the Story; Folktales for Character Development, especially their bibliographies.  When I worked regularly with teachers I often recommended them for problem classrooms.  Their topics: Peace, living in harmony with one another; courtesy, kindness, and compassion; honesty; work ethic; teamwork and cooperation; humanity; responsibility; respect.

I look forward to your cheers, casting off my one-armed status, and the eagerly awaited return of summer!

UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE  UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE  
Michigan Humanities Council publishes an e-newsletter and this is from their February newsletter:

2017 Arts & Humanities Touring Grants
Apply today - take a look at our Touring Directory and select a performer for your community event! 
 The 2017 Quick Grant cycle will open Monday, February 13, 2017.Please allow up to four (4) weeks for your application to be processed.
Quick Grants provide up to $500 to Michigan-based nonprofit organizations in support of public humanities programs.
Visit our website for more information.

Yes,  I'm in the Touring Directory and qualify for those grants.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Thorne-Thomsen - The Princess on the Glass Hill - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I confess it freely, I HATE WINTER!  On Facebook I found this from "U.P. Michigan"
I don't just "Like" that, I flat out Love it.

It's a reminder of that story starter: It Could Be Worse.  In fact today's story proved prophetic.  More on that in a bit.

Frankly we haven't had anything near that much in snow as pictured, but we've had snow.  I'm originally from St. Louis, MO (didn't even know there was a St. Louis, MI 'til I moved here) and they're usually about 10 degrees warmer, or more.  I miss it, what I don't miss is their ice.  I vividly recall a scary drive up and down on the Kingshighway Bridge.  YIKES!  Such memories are usually stirred up here around New Year's when it often hits, but as I started writing this earlier this week I felt like the Princess in today's story.  Our bunny slope of a hill was glass.  The dirt road at the foot of it was glass.  Climbing it last Monday, after finding my car couldn't make it over the crest of the hill, I was just looking forward to being safe in the house.

Little did I know that Thursday I would fall and break my wrist on yet another "glass hill."  Fortunately most of this was written already.

  
You'll not catch me rhapsodizing about snow and winter, but maybe I can pass along a story to warm up with by a fire . . . or whatever heater warms you through this weather.  I've seen some collections list this among Swedish tales, but it's definitely claimed by the Norwegians from the time Asbjornsen and Moe published Norwegian Folktales (Norwegian: Norske Folkeeventyr) throughout the 1840s.  It probably first appeared in English when Sir George Webbe Dasent in 1859 translated their work in Popular Tales from the Norse (there are copies all over the internet, that link is to the Project Gutenberg edition).  There are tons of translations in Public Domain, but I chose the one by Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen from her landmark book East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon. The title page continues "with Other Norwegian Folk Tales", it also says it's "retold", so why use her version?  Because she's Norwegian through and through, born along the fjord in Trondheim, but turned dedicated Chicagoan at age 15, eventually teaching at the University of Chicago and as a pioneer storyteller in the Chicago Public Library branches.  That 1912 book and her work eventually moved her into doing still more in education and storytelling nationally, including two more books and recording her storytelling for both the Library of Congress and (later RCA) Victor records.  Before her death in 1956 the American Library Association honored her work pioneering library storytelling with a day-long storytelling festival at their annual conference.

Today's story is long enough I can imagine some saying it should start at the dividing mark 1/3 of the way into the tale.  It's possible to do that giving a brief summary, but beyond the princess or the slippery hill the story is as much about the CinderLad, Boots, if not more so.  Some versions, in fact, just call him the CinderLad, but then again the name of Boots is popular in Scandanavian stories.  Keeping his earlier part, whatever we call him, of the story presents a splendid example throughout the tale of the traditional folklore use of threes.  Many versions of the story are in Public Domain, including illustrations.  I'll insert some beyond the only one in Thorne-Thomsen's version.  So put your feet up and warm up a bit with a story that's been a classic for a long, long time.

from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book illustrated by H.J.Ford or G.P.Jacomb Hood, 1889
Illustrated by Frederick Richardson in Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen's East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon, 1912
illustrated by Kay Nielsen in his East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1914
illustrated by Elizabeth MacKinstry in The Fairy Ring edited by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, 1906

from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book illustrated by H.J.Ford or G.P.Jacomb Hood, 1889
illustrated by Kay Nielsen in his East of the Sun and West of the Moon, 1914
from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book illustrated by H.J.Ford or G.P.Jacomb Hood, 1889
Don't you love that ending?  So much better than the unrealistic "they all lived happily ever after."  I notice they still couldn't manage that glass hill.  Neither can I!  I'll do my best to keep this coming on schedule, just as I have performance commitments also coming up throughout January and February.  Much of today's information about Thorne-Thomsen came from Storytelling: Art and Technique by Ellin Greene in the second chapter, "Storytelling to Children in Libraries."  Google Books offers the third edition online, but I asked friend and colleague, Dr. Janice Del Negro, who co-authored the fourth edition, if that chapter remained in the fourth edition and she assured me it does as it dates back to the original edition by Augusta Baker, who knew Thorne-Thomsen.  Janice is going to try and get additional information about Thorne-Thomsen and I hope to include it -- broken wrist and all -- with a very brief tale also in Thorne-Thomsen's East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon because it helps solve an important archeological mystery.

Hope that whets your curiosity and you keep coming back!

Here's my closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -
  • There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
  • You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"
You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!


Saturday, January 14, 2017

Bell - The Long Winter - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

"Now is the winter of our discontent."  Shakespeare definitely said it best.  Last weekend all but Florida in the contiguous United States had snow on the ground.  Even when it was raining, people had reason to complain for, while snow melts slower with less flooding, California and Nevada were looking at a decade level of flooding even as it lessened their drought.  It's not likely to improve, once we get past a brief warm-up, because the full moon was the 12th and the weather after that always seems to get worse.  Possibly caused by the tides and then the storms off the ocean?

Great Slave Lake has one ice road known as the Dettah ice road, connecting Yellowknife, the Northwest Territories capital, to the small First Nations fishing community of Dettah -- also in the Northwest Territories.


Slavey (Dene) girls, Mackenzie River, Northwest Territories
I was torn between presenting a story from somewhere warm or one looking frankly at winter.  Winter won out because it's so much easier to find.  Today's story come from the Dene people of northwestern Alberta, Canada, and especially the country's southern Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River from the people also known as the Slavey or Slave Indians.  Before you jump to wrong conclusions, they come from the Slave Lake region and "The people now known as Slavey in English were not necessarily taken as slaves" Wikipedia cautions.

The story comes from a 1901 issue of Journal of American Folk-Lore and is one of two stories read at the American Folk-Lore Society's annual meeting over a hundred years ago at the end of 1900.

Since I'm familiar with Michigan's Anishinaabe tale often called "The Summer Maker" given here in 2013, I enjoyed its similarity at times, plus noted its prehistoric worldwide flood at the end.  It's also wonderful in showing "It could be worse" since winter has a way of leaving me thinking the worst has happened.


Journal of American Folk-Lore. Volume XIV (1901)

LEGENDS OF THE SLAVEY INDIANS OF THE MAC-
KENZIE RIVER.
Read at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the American Folk- Lore Society at
Baltimore, Md., December 28, 1900.

I. THE LONG WINTER.

Before the present state of the world was established, and when
there were as yet no men, a very long winter set in. The sun was
never seen, the air was dark, and thick clouds always covered the 
sky and hung low down.  It snowed continually.  After this had 
lasted three years, all the animals were suffering very much from 
want of food and still more from want of heat. They became 
greatly alarmed. A grand council was held, which beasts, birds, 
and fishes attended. It was noticed that no bears had been seen 
for three years, and that they were the only creatures which did 
not go to the council.

The meeting decided that the great thing was to find out what had
become of the heat, whose long absence was the cause of all their
sufferings, and if possible to bring it back again. In order to do this
they resolved that as many of them as possible, representing all
classes, should go on a search expedition to the upper world where
they thought the heat was detained. When the council broke up
they all set out, and after much travelling far and wide through the
air, some of them were fortunate enough to find the door or opening
to the upper regions, and they went in. Among those which were
fortunate enough to get in were the lynx, the fox, the wolf, the car-
cajou, the mouse, the pike, and the mari (dogfish or fresh-water ling).
After exploring for some time they saw a lake and beside it a camp
with a fire burning. On going to the camp they found two young
bears living there. They asked the cubs where their mother was,
and were told she was off hunting. In the tipi a number of full,
round bags were hanging up. The visitors pointed to the first one
and asked the young bears, —

" What is in this bag ? "

" That," said they, " is where our mother keeps the rain."

" And what is in this one," pointing to the second bag.

" That," they answered, " is the wind."

"And this one?"

" That is where mother keeps the fog."

" And what may be in this next one ? "

" Oh, we cannot let you know that," said the cubs, "for our mother
told us it was a great secret, and if we tell, she will be very angry
and will cuff our heads when she returns."

" Oh, don't be afraid," said the fox, "she will never know that you
told us."

Then the cubs answered, " That is the bag where she keeps the
heat."

The visitors had ascertained what they wanted, and they all went
out of the tipi to hold a consultation. It was decided to retire to a
distance, as the old bear might return at any time. But first they
advised the young bears to keep a lookout for any deer (caribou)
which might come to the opposite shore of the lake.

It was resolved that the lynx should go round to the other side
of the lake, turn into a deer, and show himself so as to attract the
attention of the young bears. Meantime the mouse was to go into
the bear's canoe and gnaw a deep cut in the handle of her paddle
close to the blade. The others were all to conceal themselves near
the bear's tipi. The scheme proved successful. When one of the
little bears saw the supposed buck across the lake he cried out,
" Mother, mother, look at the deer on the opposite shore." The old
bear immediately jumped into her canoe, and paddled towards it.
The deer walked leisurely along the beach pretending not to see the
canoe, so as to tempt the bear to paddle up close to him. Then all
at once he doubled about and ran the opposite way. The bear
hastened to turn her canoe by a few powerful strokes, throwing her
whole weight on the paddle, which broke suddenly where the mouse
had gnawed it ; and the bear, falling at the same time on the side of
the canoe, upset herself into the water. The other animals were
watching the hunt from the opposite side, and as soon as. they saw
the bear floundering in the water, they ran into the tipi, pulled down
the bag containing the heat, and tugged it, one at a time, through the
air towards the opening to the lower world from which they had
come. They hastened along as fast as they could, but the bag was
very large, and none of them were able to keep up the pace very
long ; but whenever one became tired out, another would take the
bag, and so they all hurried along at a rapid rate, for they knew that
the bear would soon get ashore and return to her tipi, and that when
she discovered her loss she would make haste to follow them. Sure
enough, she was soon in hot pursuit, and had almost overtaken them
before they reached the opening to the underworld. By this time
the stronger animals were all exhausted, and now the mari took the
bag and pulled it along a good way, and finally the pike caught it up
and managed to get it through the hole just as the bear was upon
the party. But every one of them passed safely through at the same
time, and the moment the bag was within the underworld all the
animals seized upon it and tore it open. The heat rushed out and
spread at once to all parts of the world and quickly thawed the vast
accumulation of ice and snow. Its rapid melting flooded the earth,
and the water rose till it threatened to drown all the animals which
had survived the long winter. Many of them saved their lives by
climbing up a particularly big tree which was much taller than any
of the others in the woods. There was also a high mountain which
others reached and were saved. The poor beasts now cried loudly
for some one to remove the water, and a great creature, something
like a fish, appeared and drank it until he became as large as a moun-
tain. So the dry land returned, and as summer had come again, the
trees and bushes and flowers which had been covered by the ice
leaved out once more, and from that time till now the world has
always been just as we see it at the present day.

Robert Bell.

Ottawa, Canada.


Shortly after the story was presented and then published, another version was published by G.E.Jamme as "Dogrib Legend of the Flood" in The Coast, volume 11, pages 180-181 and can be found in a free Google Books publication.  Jamme spends some time in his 1906 article telling about his hearing the story from the people at Great Slave Lake.  Beyond that look at the story's original tellers, there are some interesting differences.  I suggest also going to a book by the late Ella Elizabeth Clark to read how she combines the two versions in her Indian Legends of Canada.

However you choose to re-tell the story, it's definitely winter, the time when the Native Peoples of North America all told stories to get through the winter.  I think that's a great idea!
*********************
Here's my closing for days when I have a story in Keeping the Public in Public Domain
***************** 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it. 

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend -
  • There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
  • You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"
You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!