Brr! It’s sure cold around here today.  Considering that we are in a drought, we sure are getting a lot of rain as well! In Alabama you never know what the weather will be from one day to the next!  I’m not thrilled when it is cold.  Even so I’d love to see some snow that didn’t cut the power off!  The ideal snow would be good for building snow people, making snowballs and for sledding.

My husband loves the cold. Recently we went on a trip to Gatlinburg Tennessee.  There my husband claimed the weather was more like Alabama winters of old.  We did see a little snow. Three times that week the flakes fell but there wasn’t much accumulation.  I was grateful there wasn’t.  My teens wanted to see snow. That was one reason we went up to the mountains.  So I guess it was just what they were hoping for.

I have to say I prefer Alabama. It may be unpredictable but it seems be sunny and warm more often!  In Tennessee I could barely see sunsets or sunrises for the mountains and fog.  It seemed beautiful but a bit dark and gloomy.

This week I did a Wild Wacky Weather program. Maybe that’s another reason why I’m thinking about the weather so much.  The kids that came to my program pretended it was snowing. In fact, we had a lot of fun imagining all kinds of Wild Wacky Weather!

As I write about snow, cold and weather, I’m reminded of my daughter’s grammar school academic expo project.  It was about blizzards in Alabama.  She soon found out that we’d never had an official blizzard in Alabama at all, not ever!  The last time we had significant snow was in 1993. She was around two and a half years old.  She can’t really remember it at all but we’ve certainly told her lots of stories about the “thunder snow” that fell that year.  I’m sure I must have called it a blizzard at some time. It seemed like one to me.

Not long ago I went to a Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference with my daughter. We have written some picture books together.  Some of our books are about our rescued cats.  Others are based on stories I tell. In addition, we are both working on various solo novel projects. Now we are looking at taking the next steps toward those picture books being published.  The link for the conference we went to is here:

http://www.southern-breeze.org/contests/2007/contest07winners.htm

This was a great conference. We learned so much. I recommend it to anyone interested in publishing or illustrating Children’s books in any form. They have contests for writers and illustrators.  The organization also puts together critique groups, which can be invaluable for a writer.

During the winter holidays, I always enjoy telling so many different types of stories.  From the spooky ghost stories of Halloween, to the warmer Thanksgiving, Multicultural Holidays and traditional Christmas stories, they are all fun to tell. 

There is an ethical rule in storytelling that makes ghost stories a real challenge. It is that yes, you take the audience on a journey, but you also bring them back safely.  The thing with ghost stories is that you often leave the audience hanging and imagining some gruesome things.

That’s the fun of it. You don’t take them back to a safe place at the end of the story at all.  This incongruence is something I’ve been working on because some people love to be scared with stories!  I quite enjoyed listening to Joseph Buchac at the National Storytelling Festival during the Ghost Stories last year. I learned a great deal from him.

He also has some great picture books published. You can find many of them at your local library or bookstore.

http://www.josephbruchac.com/

This year for the holidays I got a book about combining storytelling and yoga.  The book is Storytime Yoga: Teaching Yoga to Children Through Story by Sydney Solis. This is a great resource.  Now I’m ready to start creating these programs for clients!  I think they are going to be really fun as well as great exercise. 

As I read through this book and my source materials, I found that I could easily imagine yoga being integrated into so many wonderful stories that I already tell. I also enjoyed reading the stories in the book that I’d not previously encountered.  I’m so excited about the possibilities!

I also got a wonderful storytelling CD by Willy Claflin.  The title is The Uglified Ducky. You can listen to clips from the cd here:

http://www.willyclaflin.com/store.php

I had the honor of watching Mr. Claflin perform live at the National Storytelling Festival. He is just so talented and absolutely hilarious! 

I also was gifted with two Kamishibai sets. 

http://www.kamishibai.com/store/stories.html

Though this is actually one method I’ve used to tell stories for years.  I didn’t know about Kamishibai sets that you can buy, until I saw Dianne de Las Casas at a local storytelling mini conference.  I immediately put some of the sets on my holiday wish list!  She has a great storytelling website here:

http://www.storyconnection.net/

Kamishibai is an old Japanese way of telling stories using, in part, pictures. The Kamishibai or Candy Man would come into a village on his bicycle.  He’d lower the “picture stage” on the front of his handlebars.  Capturing his listeners for a fascinating story, he would refuse to tell the end until the next day. In doing so he would ensure return customers and sales of candy!  That’s almost diabolical isn’t it?  It leaves the listener dangling just like the “cliff hangers” of TV shows today!

When I use pictures as part of telling stories, I promise you I finish the stories!  Usually I use pictures for the younger audiences.  I don’t’ encourage the use of them, or any other props, with older groups or when teaching storytelling.  One can get too wrapped up in using props particularly if they are just learning how to tell stories.

Not long ago I really enjoyed creating a Pompeii Program. We had a Pompeian Feast provided by the library.  They also prepared a mosaic craft. I brought in the stories; games, songs and a volcano that we made explode!  In my research, I found that 80% of the Pompeian’s actually left before the big eruption and therefore, survived.  You rarely hear about that. You only hear that nearly everyone there died.  You hear they didn’t know the mountain was a volcano.  That’s very misleading.

I just didn’t understand how, there would not be time to reason the situation through and flee the area. The falling rocks and ash went on for days before the big eruption.  The answer is that all those pre eruptions signs did give them time to leave! 

Some people, around 2000, stayed behind. Perhaps they stayed out of duty. Some may have stayed out of fear or worry about property.  Perhaps some didn’t have a way out.  Still the majority, some 18,000 people left and lived.

This information was new to me.  It makes the fact that the survivors could have eventually forgotten the entire city of Pompeii even more mysterious, in a way. With so many survivors you’d think that someone would remember and keep telling the old stories.  In that way, they could have kept the memories of what went on and the loved ones lost there, alive.  Researching and crafting a program like this is always a joy.  There are pictures of the event on my pictures page at my web site here:

http://pub5.bravenet.com/photocenter/album.php?usernum=370697973&album=45834

As I continue to Travel Around the World in Stories in this New Year, I hope to hear from and see more of you!  It’s a wonderful, story rich, world out there. I’ve found great wisdom, humor and participation stories from every country I’ve researched.  I think we can all learn so much about one another through stories.  I believe the more we know about each other, the better we can all get along.  It’s fascinating to see how alike we all are.  It’s also interesting to discover in what ways our countries are different.  I hope you’ll join me at a story program soon!