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You, Yes, You, Telling Stories from Many Cultures

by Margaret Read MacDonald
July/August 1994
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/you-yes-you-telling-stories-from-many-cultures/5009835/

The principal of the Singapore American School hired me for the delightful job of telling multicultural folktales to his students so they could share the joys of the wonderful cultural mix in which they lived. I planned an exciting series of storytimes beginning with the Malayan mouse deer trickster Pelandok and ending with the complicated adventures of Sun Wu-Kung, the Chinese Monkey King.

The first week's round of classes was great fun. But I hit a snag when I entered the first grade class for my second week of tales. The children absolutely refused to hear a new story until I had told them last week's story again. Flattered, I complied. The next week they demanded it again! This class had simply adopted that first story as their own. They insisted on playing that story - as they called it - every single week. Soon they knew all of the parts as well as I did and we did indeed play the story.

That semester changed the way I look at folktales. I see them now as an invitation to group play. And when a class asks for the same story one ...

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