Of Stories and Storytelling

For the past couple of months, I have been coming across invites on my Facebook and Insta (@thebooksocial_) accounts, to storytelling sessions and workshops around the city. It always seemed interesting and I have been wanting to attend something like this for a while now. But opportunity and location are like the two friends who you really hope will get along and sit together in the same room, but are ever so reluctant themselves.

Luckily for me, the two did come together. And what a delightful experience it turned out to be!

I've been reading to my daughter since she was three months old. I'm glad I turned a deaf ear to everyone who said she was too young then, because today the little one has as much of an appetite for books as chocolates. 

Our bedtime story sessions are fun, full of snuggles, giggles and sometimes stories made up on the spot featuring my baby and the friends. It is replete with funny voices, sound effects and at  times conversation in 'song language'. 

But as much fun as it can be, try reading the same story over and over again for days in a row. Dull, is an understatement. It's really hard to match the enthusiasm of a toddler when you just cannot wait for the day to come to an end and you're faced with the challenge of reading the same old story with fresh energy every time. 

Which is why, a storytelling workshop had been playing on my mind because it seemed like the perfect avenue to pick up a few pointers to make our reading sessions more enjoyable. 

And Craig Jenkins' workshop gave me a lot to take away. He's a professional storyteller, traveling the world and interacting with children, educators, parents and other story enthusiasts, keeping the tradition of oral storytelling alive. Yes I am jealous. A tinge at least ☺️

During the interaction, a mother mentioned her son's take on  conventional moral stories and it reminded me of how much I disliked stories that told me what to think. And yet, here we are in the 21st Century still reading them out to our kids. Take away the ancient moral and children will come up with an understanding and philosophy so modern, relevant and distinctly their own you'll wonder how you didn't think of it before. I think that's something I'm going to include during our bedtime reading sessions now.  Having the baby voice an opinion about the story rather than the author. 

But here's what the workshop really did for me. It reintroduced the value of the simple stories we grew up listening to in our childhood. Stories that lay the foundation to our value systems and tradition. Grandma's tales.

The Hare and The Lion (The Panchatantra)

There is such magic, charm, imagination and simplicity in these stories that make up our foundation years. They are in fact applicable to all ages, hold plenty of wisdom and never grow old. Unfortunately, they are also being forgotten today, overshadowed by the marketing blitz of a Harry Potter or Wimpy Kid. 

Yet these are the stories that we need to go back to time and again. 

I'd read somewhere that every time you buy new clothes for your child, you must also buy a new book, because the brain grows faster than the body and therefore needs to be watered and fed with a healthy dose of reading. And I couldn't agree more. I just wish we had more of these timeless stories packaged well for the current generation. I wish there'd be as much time and money invested on the cover design and placement of the books in a store. I wish that a Panchatantra is as high on gloss as a Gruffalo and therefore as attractive to my three-year-old who thrives on characters like Peppa. 

But until then, I scroll through my newsfeed, looking out for more storytellers who keep the tradition of oral storytelling and folk tales alive. While I've no ambition for professional storytelling, as a full-time mum, the workshop made me revisit the art of narration. And so when we read our bedtime stories now, the voices, songs and silliness shall be there but with total freedom to rework it to suit my vision, to have the baby come up with her own version and to think of morals that are true to our times.