May 5, 2021 - Wednesday
Day two of my virtual tour with Canadian Children's Book Week #ccbcbookweek2021
The first group today was Grades 1-3 at Takhini School in Whitehorse. The principal gave me a warm welcome and then I got started with a Siberian Folktale called "Pancake Party" told with the use of two felt birds. Ptarmigan (white as snow) and Raven (black as coal) who were both too busy in their nests to help with the chores, and left all of the work to Mouse.
Next, I told them a South American Folktale "How Beetle Got her Beautiful Colours" which is a story about overcoming a bully named Paka the Rat. It is interesting how we weave bits of our own lives into the tale. In this case, I feel for the little bug who is being teased as I was encouraged to put an imaginary hard shell on my back to deflect insults when I was in elementary school.
The next folktale shared was the "Talking Cat" which gives me great pleasure to share because it is a story from the province that I represent. Even though I am an anglophone storyteller it seems only natural for me to use simple words in French given that it is the predominant language in Quebec.
It is always fun to take a risk and teach the students how to tell a story even on Zoom. The next story is one of my favourites - I call it "A Wonderful Life" others might know it as "Too Much Noise". To me it is a wonderful repetitive story about a man who is bothered by the sound of his wife's rocking chair, the clatter of her knitting needles, and the humming that she does while she rocks and knits. I taught the children the sounds that they would need to know. Each time that the Rabbi (wise man) made a suggestion, I asked the students to assist with the name of an animal. With the aid of each classroom teacher the class was unmuted long enough for them to name an animal and tell me the sound that it makes.
The first suggestion was a fox, but when no one could come up with a viable sound that fox makes, they switched the animal to a wolf with a clear howl. The story continued until the time came for the students to make all of the sounds including the chair, the knitting needles, the humming and then adding the wolf before the man left to seek more advice.
The next suggested animal was an owl and then a mouse and every so often I would see if the kids could add in other details of the story, which they recalled beautifully. I know how much fun it is to experience a repetitive or chain story as it evolves in person, but admittedly it was a great success on Zoom too.
The principal thanked me for my persistence in connecting with him for this event and then proceeded to say that "I exceeded his expectations." Not bad eh?? The students and teachers gave me a very warm round of applause and we were done.
With 20 minutes in between I was now about to Zoom with JK and SK at Children's Garden School. I had set this Zoom up so I was the one in control, and since it is hard for schools to take pictures because of privacy I decided to try a screen shot of myself and then one with my puppets. Inadvertently, I recorded myself taking pictures and moving my cursor all over my desktop as I tried to navigate the set up of the Zoom. What a hoot to see a two minute silent film of me not being aware of the recording. There are so many things to think about in this online presence. Is your camera on, is the volume up, are participants all on mute, or has someone forgotten to mute themselves and begun chatting in their own virtual space, but more about that later!!
This 30 minute session was so much fun. The most delicious thing of all was seeing some of the students in their uniforms and chatting online with each other and with their former teachers. I even got to meet younger siblings and one student showed her baby sibling to the Zoom friends.
I began the session with "Pancake Party" and used my bird puppets to enhance the experience visually. The next tale told was "Little Bear and the Bees". This gave the students the opportunity to do the hand gesture of bear shooing the bees away from his face, and making the buzzing sound of angry bees.
Just before we ended I decided to tell them a quick but fun story about "The Well Read Frog" and I invited them to act out the part of the chicken. In the story she flaps her arms and clucks at the librarian 'book, book, book, book'. The librarian is quite impressed with a chicken that can read or can she??? This was quite a hilarious sight to see on my screen considering I could not hear them!!!!
Ten minutes later the next group of kids who were in the Zoom waiting room appeared on my screen. Grades 1 - 3 where now going to have a turn to hear stories. Since everyone was listening from the comfort of their own home I could see quite a few students by leaving my camera on gallery view. One boy with a funny bone, figured out how to work his camera so that we viewed him in an upside down position. A Zoom clown if you will!!!
I had time to tell them three stories. "How Beetle Got Her Beautiful Colours" (South America), "The Monkey Who Asked for Misery" (Haiti) and we ended with "The Drum" (India). This gave the children the opportunity to tap out the rhythm 'tira kita ta dha, tira kita ta dha' from the story. It was so much fun to watch everyone participating at the right time and seeing how each one chose to move their arms or hands to the rhythm; as well as, mouthing the words.
In the story with monkey, I asked them questions while telling the story, and although I could not hear their answers I could see them mouthing the words that I was searching for, like Papa God. In the story the monkey goes to Papa God to ask for 'misery' which he thinks is good. The misery that he gets isn't sweet tasting. Instead it is in the form of a vicious dog. Later, one little boy said that he thought that the dog's name was Misery. Interesting!!
With this group we had time for questions and comments. Many of the children showed me pictures that they drew while I told stories. One child drew a picture of the beetle and the big tree, another child drew monkey sitting on top of his tree with an angry dog trying to climb the tree, and one girl was inspired to draw a beautiful pink snail.
I was asked how I find my stories, and one little boy (Larry) asked if I memorize the stories!!! Such great questions especially the last one because it speaks to the heart of what storytellers do when they learn to tell stories. I blew him a kiss and I answered him. I'll let you in on the secret too. We do not memorize our stories!!!! Of course, I shared the rest of the magic of how we learn the stories. Another child unmuted to say he liked the stories, and my heart was so full that he did.
Before the session ended, Dayna, the library technician told the children that she had heard about 8 stories from me between the two classes, and in the evening she messaged me to say: "dinner at my house was filled with recounts of the stories you shared, and the bedtime stories requested for tonight are to be 'sans book' (music to the ears of a storyteller) although maybe someday I will have something in print!!!!!
I hope I am not tiring you out with this lengthy post but there is one more hour to tell you about, and it was spent with grades 4 -7 at Takhini School (Whitehorse). While I was waiting for one of the classes to join, the students who arrived were telling me a little about life in the Yukon. Turns out there is lots of skiing in the Yukon including downhill (woohoo) and cross country, and most people swim in the lake. They also have a storytelling festival each year where the elders gather to share wonderful stories.
I started off telling them "A Girl With A Calabash" but unfortunately I got a little distracted, and then derailed because the principal who set up the meeting forgot to mute his microphone, and he was having a nice chat with someone. Although the students didn't seem to be bothered I decided to politely asked him to mute himself. When that didn't resolve the issue, I wrote him a private message in the chat, another teacher on their end tried that tactic too. It got too distracting for me to tell the story, so I asked if one of the teachers could go and ask him to please mute his microphone. You see, anything can happen in a Zoom meeting even to storytellers!!!! Once that was set straight I got right back on track with the story and the rest of the hour went off without a hitch.
The students were eager to hear more stories so I continued with Ukko's Bread (Ancient Stories for Modern Times - Faye Mogensen) and ended with "The Two Beggars". One student asked if I ever make up my own stories and the answer was YES!!! I used the example of my creation of (A Girl with a Calabash) and how I embellished (Ukko's Bread) to suit an intergenerational storytelling by adding a young girl and twisting the plot so that she could gain wisdom quickly and not suffer the fate of being turned into a woodpecker. A story that the stranger (Ukko) is only too happy to share as a cautionary tale at the end of the story.
The last question was asked by a teacher who wanted to know how I came to know so many folktales from around the world? It has taken a while for sure given that when I first started telling stories I only told Jewish tales from Eastern Europe. My repertoire began to develop prior to my first Canadian Children's Book Week Tour in May 2013. That trip will forever be etched in my memory because the interactions were in person and all of my senses were being triggered as I got to communicate with the students, faculty and parents at each school, library or public venue.
My first tour involved travel, telling stories 4 hours every day for one week, eating lunch with students and teachers, staying in hotels, and chatting with taxi drivers as they drove me from place to place. There is no way to compare the two experiences. I would have given anything to have been able to travel again, but despite all that I have just completed another great tour.
To be perfectly honest, there is no comparison between an in person storytelling tour and a Zoom Tour. Nonetheless, it has been special in other ways and has given me a new opportunity to connect with students in other provinces. Who knows maybe when travel is possible I will be able to visit in person. Although, I will have to wait another 5 years before I can apply again!!! Crafting stories and telling them is my passion and if I have to Zoom to the Moon to tell a tale, I will!!!!
A special shout out and thank you to Storytellers of Canada #storytellersofcanada
for selecting me and for trusting that I would represent our storytelling community on this first virtual tour. Thank you to all of the staff at the Canadian Children's Book Centre for setting me up with two days of work. A huge shout out to Amanda Halfpenny for putting together the roster, and all of the support in the background.
To all of you wonderful visitors who have taken the time to read this blog, or follow my journey on FaceBook at (Selina Eisenberg Smith), thank you because every story told needs a listener!!! There are fewer pictures from this tour because of the virtual nature, and in accordance with school privacy rules.
Virtual storytelling from my kitchen with Ptarmigan & Raven joining from their own nest
