Great Tales to Tell

Since 1992, the Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Awards Committee has considered thousands of books in order to draw attention to outstanding titles that can be used with confidence by storytellers. Named for the former Children's Services Coordinator for the Westchester (NY) Library System, this award was created to highlight distinguished books and to promote the art and craft of storytelling.

Our committee includes seasoned tellers of national stature as well as neophytes just embarking upon their personal storytelling journeys. We consider collections as well as individual picture-book versions of stories, keeping in mind that works must be entirely successful without depending upon illustrations, graphic elements, or audiovisual media. Folktales must be distinguished by vivid and highly tellable use of language. Authenticity, scholarship, and the citing of sources are all carefully weighed. Original stories that honor the oral tradition are sought out. Nonfiction narratives, including poetry and biography, are also considered. Books that delve into the subject of storytelling itself are examined, and may include such elements as aesthetics, tips on how to tell stories, and how to find and research them.

We meet monthly to share, compare, and contrast books we've read. We often read stories aloud, listening for the music of the language and narrative flow to make sure that, indeed, they succeed as pure, oral telling. We engage in plenty of heated discussions about storytelling issues, all for the purpose of selecting a list of 13 books (a baker's dozen) published over the course of a two-year period. For a complete listing of the award winners from past years, visit www.westchesterlibraries.org/owls/izard.html.

Too often books that pass across our desks seem artificially sweetened, probably in an attempt to avoid the dark themes that run like currents through so many folkloric tales. But facing the darkness—and usually conquering it—is what gives these tales their power.

One fine example of a successful modernization is Janice Del Negro's Lucy Dove (DK Ink, 1998), based on an old Scottish tale. Traditionally, the story focuses on a meek tailor who, because of a surprising show of courage, is rewarded with a pot of gold. The fact that Lucy Dove is an older woman who has lost her job as a seamstress because of her age in no way detracts from the theme that the underdog can triumph. If anything, it enhances it by adding a welcome and relevant twist. The spare yet colorful wording makes it ripe for telling. The tale begins most captivatingly, 'When wishes were horses and beggars could ride, in a stone castle by the sea there lived a rich laird….' When brave Lucy seeks safety from the monster at her back, the following word picture rivets readers' attention. 'She ran until she reached the gate of the laird's castle by the sea, a wooded gate, a strong gate, a locked gate—a gate bolted shut against the night and all the things that roamed it.' Here is language that sings.

Collections of stories often represent a particular culture or region. J. J. Reneaux's How Animals Saved the People (HarperCollins, 2001) serves up a tangy gumbo of tales told in the Deep South from the Cajun, Creole, Native American, African-American, and Scottish-Irish-German traditions. Discover the humorous pourquoi tale of how Miz Gator's once 'beautiful, smooth-as-silk, pea green suit' came to be 'scorched into a tough hide, greenish brown like the Mississippi,' thanks to the mischief of Br'er Rabbit. Gain a new understanding of the importance of animals in our lives and our history from the title story, told by Choctaw tribes.

To date, only six original stories have merited an Anne Izard Award. The deliberate crafting and shaping of a story that can compete with such time-tested classics from folklore as 'Cinderella' and 'Hansel and Gretel' demand extraordinary talent. Yet there are authors who have risen above these daunting odds.

Teresa Bateman's The Ring of Truth (Holiday, 1997) tells what happens when Patrick O'Kelly, famous for never telling the truth when a lie would do much better, meets up with the King of the Leprechauns, who tricks him into wearing a magic ring that prevents him from telling anything but the truth. Even so, Patrick's recountings of his actual encounters with the leprechauns are so fantastic that he is accused of spinning more blarney than ever. This 'truth is stranger than fiction' tale was conceived after the author, a school librarian, spent a week telling St. Patrick's Day stories to her students. Its plot and use of language convey the sense of authentic Irish folklore.

Hearsay: Strange Tales from the Middle Kingdom (Greenwillow, 1998) is a tribute to the imagination of its author, Barbara Ann Porte. In its pages are 15 original stories, all inspired by beautiful and elaborate customs from old China. Court magicians, warrior crickets in jeweled cages, dragons who weep pearls, and knishes for sale in China's long-ago Jewish community all dazzle the mind's eye in tales just meant for telling aloud.

One factor that immediately disqualifies a book—no matter how good it may be otherwise—is a lack of documentation. It is unacceptable to omit this crucial information.

The citing of sources needn't be extensive. In Clever Tortoise (Candlewick, 2000), Francesca Martin gives the following informal credit: 'My sister and I first heard the story of Clever Tortoise when we were small. We lived in East Africa then, in Tanzania. We thought it was a new story (because we had just heard it), but it was an old story that the Ngoni people of southern Tanzania would tell each other. I have put some Kiswahili words into this version of the story. I hope you will not find them difficult. It is the language most widely spoken in Tanzania. The sound of it in my ears makes me remember other sounds of East Africa—like storm rain drumming, cicadas singing, and the noise of two little girls laughing over the clever trick that Clever Tortoise played on the banks of Lake Nyasa. I hope you will laugh too….'

From this introduction, with its sense of nostalgia and personal connection, readers can anticipate a thoroughly delightful story to come. And they won't be disappointed!

Peninnah Schram's Stories within Stories (Jason Aronson, 2000) is brimming with riches, including its remarkable and extensive scholarship. Notes for one of its 50 tales, 'The King Who Loved Stories,' inform readers that it is listed in the Israel Folktale Archives, which includes 20,000 folktales from the various ethnic communities in Israel. We learn further that this hitherto unpublished story was told by Hinda Scheinfarber from Poland and recorded by Hadara Sela. What Schram offers is nothing less than a universe of stories that can take us on a never-ending and always fascinating journey through ethnicity, history, philosophy, literature, etc. Moreover, the stories themselves offer something for everyone—humor and romance as well as religious and moral themes, many drawn from Talmudic and Midrashic sources. Don't miss this storytelling treasure trove.

The 'Beauty and Beast' storytelling duo of Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss has brought us Children Tell Stories: A Teaching Guide (Richard C. Owen, 1990). In it, they present a six-week lesson plan for teaching stories in the classroom, including tips on movement, facial expression, and tone of voice. From this, teachers and students can engage in a method of cross-curricular education that will greatly enhance their understanding.

Barbara McBride-Smith's Tell It Together: Foolproof Scripts for Story Theatre (August House, 2001) offers another way of telling stories. Here is a collection of 23 scripts taken from myths, folktales, and fiction, all kid-tested and written by a school librarian. They can be read aloud easily by a group ensemble, a fun, nonthreatening activity for even the most reluctant public speakers. McBride-Smith includes simple ideas for sound effects and costuming.

Carol Birch invites storytellers to use their five senses in The Whole Story Handbook: Using Imagery to Complete the Story Experience (August House, 2000). 'How does the king look and sound? How does the princess's hair feel in her suitor's hand?' By putting themselves into the world of the story itself, they become passionately engaged and pass on that attention to their listeners as well.

Pete Seeger and Paul DuBois Jacobs extend a delightful invitation to teachers, parents, and grandparents to tell tales from their own lives in Pete Seeger's Storytelling Book (Harcourt, 2000). They include tempting samples—song-based stories, music, tales from the Seeger and Jacobs' clans, and wonderful narratives from American history. The authors' message is clear: they want readers to start storytelling traditions of their own to share with the children in their lives.

Only one biography has been selected so far. Nina Jaffe's A Voice for the People: The Life and Work of Harold Courlander (Holt, 1995) pays homage to a man who believed in the essential oneness of humanity. His pioneering efforts, starting in the 1930s, took him to Hopi Indians, black communities in the South, and people of Haiti in order to record their stories. Through his published work, Courlander helped bring these stories to the attention of teachers and librarians, thus introducing larger worlds to people of very different cultures.

By using the Anne Izard Award selections as a springboard, we encourage librarians and teachers to discover and share the wealth of telling tales. The riches to be gained will last a lifetime.

Zahra M. Baird is a Children's Librarian at the Chappaqua (NY) Library and Carol Katz is a Children's Librarian at the Irvington (NY) Public Library.