I'm making plans for library services for the SELI library.
I journaled starting out not just reading books aloud but doing storytelling as librarian at the American International School of Freetown a few (😆) years ago. I'll definitely work this into my plans at SELI.
Journal, April 1993:
I'm trying to learn to become a storyteller (without a book). Two weeks ago in my Library Fun club I told the story of Beowulf—the first epic poem written in English in the 8th century. We have a good book that simplified it, but it was hard to learn and took 40 minutes to tell, partly because the kids all asked good questions.
Today is St. Patrick's Day and I told an Irish story about a Brownie. It took about 15 minutes, and they loved it! It doesn't seem so hard now that I've done it twice, so I'm looking for another to learn. I have to like the story and the way it’s written myself, but the idea is that you build their ability to think visually for an extended period of time because right at the end of telling a long story, I read in a library journal, you can launch into a discussion of the highest theoretical kind--atomic theory or anything--and they will grasp it, because you already have them thinking visually. I want to try that sometime and see.
