Twenty Tellable Tales: Audience Participation Folktales for the Beginning Storyteller

by Margaret Read MacDonald, Roxane Murphy (Illustrator)

"If you love a story and love sharing it with your audience, the gift of story you give is of great value."
― Margaret Read MacDonald MacDonald's classic storytelling how-to primer returns, filled with updated resources, classic stories from around the globe, guidelines to tell them with gusto, as well as advice on finding, learning, and telling new tales. Twenty stories, complete with suggestions for chants, songs, dialects, repeating lines, and audience participation, make these multicultural tales easy to learn and tell while satisfying young audiences. A master of communicating in the story format, MacDonald engages readers just as she does her young audience members in story circles worldwide. She shares a goldmine of practical advice so that both veteran and inexperienced storytellers A new generation of school and children's librarians, storytellers, and folklorists can get ready to be inspired! Use this classic handbook to create maximum impact around the story circle―for tellers and listeners alike.

Genres: Folk Tales, Adult, Nonfiction, Short Stories

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

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Biography
Dr. Margaret Read MacDonald travels the world telling stories....always on the lookout for more great folktales to share. She shapes these found stories into tellable tales which anyone can share with ease. Filling her folktale collections with these delightful tales, she creates perfect read alouds for you and your family. MRM wants everyone to experience the joy of a beautifully told tale. She hopes you will read them a few times...then put down the book...put down the electronic device...and just TELL the story to your children!

Some of her favorite folktales she expands into picture books...hopefully with delightfully readable language while will roll right out of your mouth. Share them with your children and then....act the tales out! Revisit the tales by TELLING them! At bedtime. While on the road. Fill your pockets with great stories to share wherever you go.

Joining her Folklore Ph.D. with her 30 plus years as a children's librarian, Margaret brings folktales to life in playful, lilting language which should delight both reader and listener.

See her performance schedule at: www.margaretreadmaconald.com

Reviews

[The Library Lady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone learning to tell stories should run out and get a copy of this book. The stories are truly tellable and MacDonald's advice on learning to tell stories is invaluable!

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic resource for all storytellers. What I most appreciate is how many of these I can tell to my preschool audience-- an age group that I don't have many oral stories to pull from. The author notes after the stories are very helpful in how to encourage audience participation even from the youngest of listeners. Some of the stories appear in other MacDonald collections but they are included here with the angle of using audience participation.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

20 Tales for Telling.
The author does do a great job of stressing things like repetition and songs incorporated into the stories. The book features a lot of cultural diversity in storytelling.
Part of the reason why I disliked the STORIES themselves, not the tips/tricks, was because their content was darker than I was anticipating. I clearly don't mind tough topics, but when many of the stories feature death or ruin, it makes it a bit less kid-friendly, even for the stories speaking of some form of moral.

However, 25 additional pages AFTER the stories feature great tips and tricks about intonation, movement, and offers (if outdated) further resources for storytellers to use. This was the most helpful tool of the book.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the tales, and did find some I've never read before, including a Japanese tale that taught me the word 'furoshiki' and so now I know what to do with some of my fabric stash....

I glanced at the the hints for the novice storyteller and the appendices, and they seem very valuable. In fact, they make me wish that I was a grandparent, teacher or librarian and could tell tales! I'd never be able to be as dramatic as MacDonald, but she makes it plain that a storyteller can be restrained and effective, too; everyone needs to do what is comfortable for them.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource. Tales are broken down into stanzas and individual lines with important words emphasized so they are easy to tell. Includes suggestions for performance and source notes for each tale. Includes author's notes on finding, learning, and telling tales at the the back of the book. Extensive bibliography.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this book is old, and relies on perhaps dated materials, the pedagogy is sound, and useful to teachers.

[Sps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this was revised and reprinted in 2004, in fact only the sources were updated and the stories themselves remain as they were when published in 1986. Thus the stories are things that were maybe considered appropriate and inoffensive in 1986. But in 2011, I just don't see myself telling a story where the punchline revolves around how baggy the trousers of the Sultan of Turkey are. Those sorts of cultural things eliminated a few stories for me. A few other stories revolved around people killing and eating animals, and while I liked them as stories, again, for me, they wouldn't be comfortable to perform.

This left a small number of the original 20 tellable tales, and none grabbed me as a must-tell story, so I returned the book without committing any to memory. It merits a second look, though, as I liked a lot of the audience participation elements. Also I liked how MacDonald talked about telling some stories in her own Southern Indiana dialect. Go Hoosiers.


Most useful for those with a captive K-3 audience such as teachers and school librarians.

[Ashley Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only found a couple of tales in here I would be interested in learning. McDonald's selection of tales are all aimed at audience participation, and she has the annoying habit of writing every other word in a story in ALL CAPS. However, McDonald has some really great elements in this book. She includes tips on how to tell each individual tale, the Aarne-Thompson classification, and a list of different variants for the tale, as well as the music for any songs that might be included in it. There's a great section in the back of the book on techniques for learning and telling a story, and there's a great bibliography of sources for beginning storytellers. It's a solid resource for storytellers.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Age: K-5th grade

Provides excellent analysis and points for participation after story. Stories written without natural, superfluous add-ons of the language and are, therefore, meant to be read as is. The problem with this is that it is harder for a storyteller (other than MacDonald) to "own" the story.

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this collection! All of the tales are marvelous and many of them are interactive. I like the way each story has notes on telling from MacDonald and also source details for other versions. My Favorites were A Whale of a Tale, Coyote's Crying Song, Little Crab and His Magic Eyes, Old One-Eye, The Gunny Wolf, and Punia and the King of the Sharks!

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent source book for storytellers, particularly those just starting out. McDonald also includes tips on how to get started as a storyteller although these are expanded in much more depth in her Storyteller's Start-Up Book.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am interested in learning more about storytelling. Mom and I would like to attend one of the annual national seminars one day. This book was a bit of a disappointment even though the title caught my interest.

audio book

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some good storytelling stories, and useful, encouraging suggestions for storytelling. A lot of the stories didn't grab me, though, and the background material is geared for aspiring folklorists, not for amateur storytellers.

So, a good book, but not for me or what I was looking for.

[Ledawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any story teller should have this.
"Parley Garfield and the frogs"
"Rolly-Polly rice ball"
"Old one eye"

[Renee Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent for begiinners. Some of the first stories I told came from this collection.