J Specials - Nov / Dec 2012

In November and December I conducted two J specials in the form of Stories and Crafts. In Nov, it was on Chickens and in Dec, it was all about butterflies. My preferred format thus far has been to tell children interesting facts about the creatures, tell a story and then on with the crafts.

Lately, I've specifically invited parents to stay for the programmes. I know sometimes we do so so parents can help with the cutting and pasting etc... But I've tended to design crafts with the following criteria

1. Precut


2. No glue required - use double sided tape
3. Children can personalise - typically with colour pencils or choose the colour of some elements

1 & 2 makes the programme easier to run. 3 is a must for children to express themselves.
But back to inviting parents to stay for the programme: It makes it quality time for parents to spend with their children. It helps us engage more people. We can get more word of mouth for our programmes. And of course its typically, our friendly volunteers who help the programmes run smoothly. We don't always have them but their presences truly helps add value to the programme because I can concentrate on the content and interacting with the participants. Where volunteers are available, it truly pays to have them prepare the materials for the next programme rather than the current one. "One ahead" is a principle that pays in logistics and performance arts and according to some books, negotiation as well - although the last portion is not always to my taste.

Storytelling so far

In the beginning, there was fright...

I started my journey through storytelling by

1. Observing other librarians do it
2. Rehearsing. I remember rehearsing my whole 'act' more than 4 times the first couple of times I did it. The first time, I rehearsed till I was sick of it and then I rehearsed a few times more.
   i) Went through every story I had chosen
   ii) Rehearsed exactly how I'd tell it including, body movement, voice and interaction
   iii) Get the timing right to fit it all in 30min
   iv) Have a back up story or two in case I speed through the first few out of fright or if the children have heard them before.
3. I also had some tips from various librarians, including Peter Chan who typically tells his own stories by drawing.

Over the years, I've continued

1. Observing how other librarians and professional storytellers do it - mostly live but sometimes through videos.
2. Rehearsing - it became more and more of a mental rehearsal as I went along. Experience tends to give a pretty accurate similation.
3. Attended a few courses on storytelling and drama.

If I see something I like, I typically start by doing an exact copy and then adapting it to my style and putting in new elements.

The different types of storytelling I've done include:

1. Storyreading
2. Dramatizing (either alone, with colleagues or on two occasions, getting children to do it)
3. Origami
4. Draw and Tell (some original, some existing ones)
5. With Puppets, throwing in some ventriloquism
6. With Magic - I am particularly proud of this one because I created a 20-25 minute story to weave together some effects I had learned.

On occasion, I've had to do a storytelling with no preparation and had to

1. Tell or adapt a story from memory
2. Create a story on the fly

Some of the librarians I enjoy observing for their skills:
Nelly Fredolin, Raneetha Rajaratnam, Joanna Zhang - they all pour energy and poise into their programmes
Hussain Bachek, Azizah Osman, Pek Een - I like their more understated way to doing it that is so unlike me and yet effective. Pek Een is also much better at 'crowd' control than I am

Professional storytellers I enjoy:
Roger Jenkins - a very confident storyteller that has many unique takes on some standards
Bobby and Sherry Norfolk - Sherry Norfolk was amazing at creating some voices and Bobby Norfolk just put in so much amazing energy that I revisited some stories I had previously discarded as too boring
Randel McGee - he does ventriloquism too and tells stories in a very humourous manner. He also performs paper cuttings (mainly of Hans Christian Andersen stories) - something that is still out of my skilset.