What Adrienne Thinks About That

I once memorized Kipling's "The Elephant's Child" word-for-word (I still revive it occasionally). I was in grad school at the time, and on my long walks from wherever-I-could-find-to-park on the sprawling campus to the School of Information Science, I'd practice the story. So, I'm sure I looked like the crazy woman talking to herself. Not that I'd gesticulate wildly or anything, but my lips would be moving a bit.

You just have to tell stories like that over and over and over.

Why have I never heard "The Old Woman and Her Pig"? Do enlighten me.

Also: I want to see you storytell one day. I bet it's a big ol' treat.

Jules, Wow on "The Elephant's Child." It takes me really a lot of practice to memorize something, and then there's memorizing something well enough to repeat it to myself in a nice, quiet, controlled environment. Memorizing something well enough to tell it in front of a live audience is quite another thing. If I don't have whatever it is internalized, I lose myself at the first distrction (and with kids, there's *always* a distraction).

Here's a version of "The Old Woman and Her Pig": http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-6.html. Its details are a bit different than the way I tell it, but that's the basic structure.

I'm a good-enough storyteller, but I don't have a huge number of stories memorized, and I could really stand to extend my range. Partly this is because of the needing to practice a lot to get anything. I like doing a combination of stories-in-my-head and books. That makes me most comfortable.

GO GO GO YOU!
I'll have to look that story up.

Yeah, it takes a lot of work. And I find that, depending on the story, audience is key. When I first told "The Elephant's Child," it was in a grad course on storytelling that I took. We had a festival at the close of the course, and we got to invite folks. As I told the story, I could hear Eisha and her husband laughing, responding to the story, and I was reminded (once again) of how funny Kipling's tales were. My grad school prof and some other friends of mine were laughing, too. I mean, it's a great story.
And then my grad school prof has invited me back to tell it to future courses, and I've been met with silence sometimes. There's nothing like an audience of fellow theatre and lit geeks (as there was on that first day), I say.

Come to think of it, I've NEVER told it to children. Weird. I wonder if it'd fly.

As for internalizing it, I think it depends on what kind of learner, perhaps, a person is. When I tell the story, I see the text in my head. Not images. I see the text, the specific text from which I memorized the tale, in my mind. That's what helps me. I think if I ever looked at the story in another volume, it would screw me up. Weird way to internalize probably, but I'm just so left-brained or something. I dunno.

I've always wanted to memorize another one. A Carl Sandburg story would be good, I think.

One of my favorite stories to tell is The Boy Who Drew Cats. Last time I did that was at the school for the deaf, where I signed AND spoke it, which (if you're doing it in ASL) is a lot like rubbing your head and patting your tummy at the same time. THAT is like almost choreography in a way.

It's great that you even do storytelling at all. A lot of librarians don't. Way to mix it up.

Thanks for the link. Gonna go read the story now!

Thanks, Little Willow!

Jules, You'd think for a word-oriented person, I would remember specific texts, but what I remember are moods and senses and ideas. This is why numbers are always getting all mixed up in my head. Word-for-word memorization just kind of scares me.

Another thing I run into is that a lot of stories I might want to learn to tell are best for school-aged audiences, but I am almost always sharing stories with preschoolers, so I get fewer chances to practice the longer/more involved ones.

I'm that way with numbers, too. I was highly, HIGHLY embarrassed yesterday when my father-in-law asked how much our new car cost. It's not that I'm some dingy (sp?) blonde who didn't pay attention to all that (heavens no, since we live on a tight budget and this was a serious, serious purchase); it's that I just FREEZE when someone asks about things like heights, what time my children were born, how much they weighed...I mean, eventually I'll remember, but my brain just stops working when I'm asked about numbers.

The mileage on my car? Oh, forget about it. I often have to stop and think about our zip code. SO EMBARRASSING. Have you ever been asked your phone number before, and you froze a moment? The other day I was trying to dial Blaine from my parents' home, and I dialed our Knoxville phone number from about ten years ago. It might be from moving so much, but then I think it's just generally 'cause my brain atrophies on numbers.

Clearly, I don't know how it is that I can memorize texts.

Speaking of you being word-oriented, just about every time my girls watch "Word Girl," which is just about every day, I think, "oh, there's Adrienne. She looks like Adrienne." That's how closely linked that show is with you. For me.

Don't you sometimes visit schools? Wouldn't you have a chance then to storytell to a slightly older crowd?

(GOOD GOD, I've typed enough on your great blog today. I'm gonna wear out my welcome.)

Jules, I have those frozen moments, too, and I almost always have to tell people whenever I cite a number that I might be wrong. I will spend a lot of time thinking and analyzing things like financial decisions, but it always involves a piece of paper--and once it's over, I really let it go out of my mind. Sometimes I think it's just that my brain is lazy.

I do get to see school groups, but not nearly so much as the preschoolers. I might see one or two school-aged groups a month during most of the year, and then at the end of the year I'll see dozens in this two week period. I wish I had a better balance. Jason says he's going to try meeting with some of the school librarians in September, see if we can start creating some more opportunities to collaborate (and hopefully tell stories!) through the rest of the year. We'll see how it goes, though.