Don't Walk the Plank!

Guess I should walk the plank for not catching something.  Looked at last month's blog, Are Ballads Really Storytelling?, and found my opening picture had vanished!  Tried to use my Summer Reading postcard design from my Vistaprint folder, but that design stopped appearing where I inserted it.  Murphy's Law is still in force, even for pirates.  My puppy puppet, Buzz, turns pirate for the summer of 2013 as we "Dig for Treasure in the 398s" and he misses the pawprints appearing all over the card design.  Guess it's time to get my own paws digging for some of that treasure.

There's always a wealth of resources at any library, both in books and online.  I'm just beginning to think about what I want to tell.  My first choice: tales of treasure, especially if pirates are part of the story.  Last month looked at Ballads as Storytelling and I have decided the song "High Barbaree" is a must.

A recent comment on the state email list for librarians, MICHLIB-L, included a request for material to use with a pirate puppet.  This post includes resources for that and much more.

For the youngest lovers of anything Pirate-related, I've fallen in love with a new (to me!) resource, Storytime Katie, which is subtitled "one librarian's journey into storytimeland."  More years ago than I'm willing to admit I tried documenting my themes and material used, but like a diary, eventually stopped writing it.  (I justified it with the idea that not only do materials come and go, but it also may produce some fresh thinking.)  Thanks to blogging, Katie gives us both her own and readers resources for: crafts, flannelboards, fingerplays, songs, and THEMES, including, yes, indeed, Pirates.  She's also one-stop linking for early childhood resources, so go to both her Resources page and also her Blogroll.  So far it's 3 years of work -- the very reason I stopped recording back in pre-computer days, so let's hear it for Better Storytelling Through Technology!

Karen Chace

Moving on beyond early childhood material is sometimes more difficult, but not if you know my friend and colleague out in Massachusetts, Karen Chace.  She has a website, Catch the Story Bug, and a blog,  packed to overflowing with treasure of all kinds and, like me, she works with all ages.  Her recent Talk Like a Pirate Day blog article is great to find pirate stories, music, crafts, and even curriculum material from the New England Pirate Museum, plus such miscellaneous material for some of those jokes I plan to inflict, er share with my audiences.




Does anybody know where I can find some pirate socks for my puppy, Buzz?  They need to be AAARGYLE.   He's been Baaarking over that and other jokes. Yes, a lot over-use the pirate's favorite letter...the letter, Aaar, but you can find pirate jokes scattered at these sites:

• Yarrgh! Pirate Jokes

• Pirate Jokes And Riddles For Kids 

• Pirate Treasure Now is a club that anyone interested in pirates and treasure may join, so you might not want it open to young children.  It still is a good resource as they do have a great assortment of pirate activities and facts and clearly differentiate between their Pirate Jokes and a section of "Rude Pirate Jokes" not intended for children

• last of all, but definitely not the least is Enchanted Learning.com where you can go from their definitely kid-friendly jokes to their PirateTheme page for crafts and worksheets, many of which would make great handouts for preschool to about grade 3.

Friend and colleague, Jackie Baldwin, at her wonderful Story-Lovers site, as always, has so many resources, yes, even the "Talk Like a Pirate" topic.  Click on the hotlink listed above to see pirate material, but also do yourself a favor and explore her entire site.  Especially lovely is her printing of classic fairy tale art for stationery, cards, prints, and much more, but you need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to find that.  The SOS: Searching Out Stories section is now 12 years old!  It includes a great deal contributed by the members of the international email list Storytell -- but she definitely adds to that with books and other media related to any topic.  This will give you even more material, be it books, stories, or that loveliest of treasure..."miscellaneous" to avoid Walking the Plank whenever you want to have pirates as a theme.  (Yes, yes, Buzz, that includes you, too.)

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Here's a great idea I just found at the blog,  Sunflower Storytime, whose author also is thinking about the Dig into Reading multi-state cooperative Summer Reading theme.  There are many different ways to Dig into Reading, but if you want to dig up "Magic Treasure Rocks" the formula uses

• Baking Soda
• Vinegar
• Water
• Food Coloring
• Treasures
• Glitter (optional)

In a bowl mix a few drops of food coloring into baking soda.  To make RAINBOW rocks, mix each color separately   Slowly add water to the bowl, mixing in-between.  It is easy to add to much water so you definitely want to add it slowly.  Add enough baking soda to mold it and holds it's shape.  Too much water will keep the baking soda from molding. 

Inside each "rock" you can hide a small treasure inside.  Then lay your baking soda rocks out to dry.  Once dry you can bury them in dirt or a sandbox and let children find them.   For added fun, once they are found, spray them with vinegar and the rocks fizz and disappear, leaving the treasure! 

Are Ballads "Really" Storytelling?

Every year when the Summer Reading Program ends, whether as a storyteller or a librarian, I start thinking about the next summer's theme.  For 2013 it's Dig Into Reading .  That made me think





During the Dog Days of the summer of 2013 Dig into Reading with LoiSand her puppy puppet, Buzz, as they DIG for TREASURE in the 398s!


Buzz can already Dog Paddle, but he is trying to learn to talk like a pirate, but ARF! is not quite the same as AARGH!
Try also saying "Puppy Puppet, Buzz the Pirate" five times fast!

I know there's treasure in the 398s easily found by librarians.  Limited money for programs requires something beyond promoting a library's collection. While storytelling's important -- how could I think otherwise! -- librarians know variety brings people to programs: puppets, music, magic, juggling, anything beyond the usual.  Even if a librarian has those skills, it takes time to develop programs using them.  Puppetry and music, with storytelling, will help me DIG for the TREASURE of the 398s.   I will include a rousing pirate ballad telling a great classic story.  That reminded me of a discussion on Professional Storyteller network asking if singing a story is storytelling.  With permission from my fellow participants comes this discussion, "Songs as stories" asking exactly that.

http://www.richelleputnam.net

Posted by Richelle Putnam on September 26, 2010
I was disheartened by another storyteller who said singing stories, such as ballads, was not "really" storytelling. I bit my lip and went on without a battle, but was, of course, reminded of the earliest known storytellers who, while playing their instrument of choice, "sang" stories for a meal, room, and board. Some of the greatest stories ever told, historical, mythological, and folklore, were done so through singing ballads. "Big John," "Ringo," "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," "Delta Dawn," "The Gambler," "The City of New Orleans," and the list goes on.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Richelle Putnam
A writer/singer of ballads
and
...storyteller?

Replies to This Discussion:

http://thestorytellingman.com

Reply by George Allen Williams on September 27, 2010
Harry Chapin was one of my favorite "song-tellers," and Stan Rogers' work still knocks me cold. For what it's worth, I've often noticed that people who comment that anything other than what they are doing isn't "really" whatever they think it should be, tend to be rather narrow in scope, thought, and ability. Go right on singing your tales. Tell Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, or Woodie (and Arlo) Guthrie that they aren't (or weren't) great storytellers. Fie upon the person who says otherwise. Keep singing your tales. (I'd still be doing it, too, except an old injury to my right arm doesn't allow me to play any more. I still do the occasional a-cappella piece, though.)

Reply by Richelle Putnam on September 27, 2010
Thank you! You named some of my all time favorites and they still move my heart after all these years.

Hey, nothing better than A-cappella.

http://www.facebook.com/MagdaStorySpider

Reply by Christi U. on September 27, 2010
I agree. I'm definitely a words person and tend to hear the "stories" within music sooner than I hear the beat. And yes, all of those songs and songtellers are perfect examples of just another expression of the same Truth we are all telling. I wonder how many festivals your critic had been to. I have quite a few tellers who use music well and have a wonderful following because of the fact they are following their own talents rather someone else's super-imposed perceptions.

http://www.DanielBishoptheStoryteller.com

Reply by Daniel Bishop, the Storyteller on September 30, 2010
Storytelling: The use of the voice to convey a narrative. Some of my favorite storytellers use music to tell their stories. I will say I'm a bit of a purest, as I believe that an author is a writer of story, not a teller. A dancer is a Dancer of Story not a teller, and a filmmaker is a conveyor of story not a teller. But when you use your voice to tell a story, then you are a storyteller. I have heard singer sing a ballad but did not tell a story. They sang words to music. They could have use any words. But if you tell a story using music to help, you are a storyteller.

There is my $0.02
Daniel Bishop, the Storyteller

Reply by Richelle Putnam on October 5, 2010
Good point. Voice is used in both. I have also heard story tellers who did not tell a story....but we won't go there. : )
Richelle

Reply by Daniel Bishop, the Storyteller on October 5, 2010
Ohh so true. Stringing two words together does not a story make. I have heard two people give the same story, one was painful, the other was magic.

Reply by Richelle Putnam on October 5, 2010
Exactly!

http://www.LoiS-sez.com

Reply by Lois Sprengnether Keel (LoiS) on October 5, 2010
Similarly some probably would say telling in poetry or verse isn't storytelling. Yet it's communication & it does have the ability to be varied to match its listeners within the context of the fixed words. That's how the great epic tales began.

I've been working at adding music to my storytelling for the variety it provides. Today's audiences sometimes need a change of pace & this is 1 of many ways. Often a ballad can be the perfect lead into a story continuing a theme touched in a song. You mention writing ballads, so this is especially possible, more for you than for those who simply sing something they find.

To add to the names of balladeers who told stories in song: early in my storytelling life I heard Gamble Rogers. He is singing & telling his tales in the Great Beyond, but exposure to him helped me understand & broaden my definition of storytelling before it became etched in stone.

In the case of existing ballads, I've seen them used as an introduction to a story that was told. I'm thinking of Leanne Johnson's telling of The Singing Bone. She & her harp also are no longer with us, but, like that story of an instrument that tells a tale of murder, this still plays in my mind. Whether retelling the story an old ballad provides or giving us your own ballad, it is oral storytelling & that is the stated purpose of this network.

Keep on telling...whatever way communicates in a live, direct manner between you & your listeners. It IS real storytelling to a great many of us.

Reply by Richelle Putnam on October 5, 2010
Thank you so much for sharing. Storytelling in whatever capacity keeps our heritage alive and lives from becoming mundane! 

http://johanna.itgo.com

Reply by Scott and Johanna Hongell-Darsee on October 17, 2010
I totally agree that singing and storytelling belong together. I often perform medieval ballads and weave a story around them. It gives another dimension to the narrative and I like the feeling of repeating something that has been handed down through generations, giving it my own touch. Ballads are not just music to be performed in concerts. They are crazy stories to be performed for their stories.

http://www.londondreamtime.com

Reply by Neckinger Nell on October 24, 2010
Richelle, Thanks for this, I *absolutely* agree, in fact I was just pondering the same thing a couple of days ago...
"So many ways"...
There are so many wonderful ways to tell a story. I hope I get to hear some of your story ballads one day.
best wishes,
Vanessa

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So you've had a chance to listen in on this discussion.   My Puppet Puppy Pirate Buzz wants to know:

What do you think...Are Ballads "Really" Storytelling?