Giveaway is still open until June 3 . . .
This week’s Weekly Geek has to do with other forms of storytelling — stories outside of books, that is. I’ve chosen oral storytelling.
In my family, we have a history of oral storytelling. When my brothers and I were young, we’d get read a story or stories every night before bed — the three of us crowded onto one big water-bed, along with a parent (usually our mom). Mostly we’d read books, but sometimes, we’d tell stories: stories about Joey and Davy.
Now, I don’t want to get too far into who Joey and Davy are, and what they do (because, you know, it’s a family thing). But the basics are thus: Joey and Davy Ookembooki are brothers. They are each an inch tall. They live with their parents, Allegra and I-forget-the-dad’s-name Ookembooki. They have adventures. Many much adventures.
The interesting thing about Joey and Davy stories, I think, besides their obvious hilarity, is the way that they’ve transferred from teller to teller. Mom told the first Joey and Davy story, but soon Dad told them too. We taught how to tell Joey and Davy stories to one of our babysitters (and to this day, we remember particularly funny lines from many of his versions). One of our grandmothers has been known to tell them.
Things change when these stories are told by different people. Not only the situations are different, but the characters change too. I think it was only after our babysitter started telling the stories that it became clear that Joey talks like this and Davy talks like this. When my grandmother told her first story, Joey and Davy were invisible, which they never were before or since. When my Mom told the stories, Yo-Yo Ma would often feature, and probably none of us remember how or why that started — but it ends up being very funny.
There’s a neat flexibility to oral tales — as I’m sure we’ve all experienced (ever notice how your last adventure gets slightly more fantastical every time you tell it?). They’re very different than bookish stories which, once set on paper, are largely inflexible. And it’s cool seeing how people can take the same basic idea — two very very small brothers — and do very creative and different things with that idea.
Did your family tell stories?
Yeah, My family told stories about two guys named Joey and Davy Ookembooki. Yo Yo Ma showed up a lot, too.
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What?
You know, I almost wrote about the same thing! My mom used to tell my sister and I Priscilla stories. I don’t remember much about them but I DO remember that Priscilla was a princess and she had all kinds of adventures. My sister and I would beg mom to tell us more Priscilla stories each night at bedtime.
Now I have a son, and for a while I was telling him stories of a baby spider named Spindle who was new to the world. Spindle would have smallish adventures, exploring the world around him and meeting other bugs.
Thanks for a great post – it brought back lots of lovely memories.
Not really, but I used to scare my friends at campouts and sleep overs with scary stories! There is a lady in our town who we go listen to at our town library. She is very good at storytelling!
haha, scary stories at camp!! I remember once that Ivy told a story of a Moose to a group of girls on a camp out and someone imitated a moose using their french horn on the dock opposite the camped out group. Summer camp stories… then there’s Copper and the Fish.
Home stories are different from camp stories. My dad told us tales featuring Princess Fromeldahyde and Charlie Brown. Yes. those names are right (my spelling may be a little off on the princess though).
We didn’t used to tell stories in exactly the same way, but what we did was make up stories about the things the kids were scared of, and make them funny. For instance, one of my sons got frightened one night when he walked into the bathroom in the dark and thought he saw a monster – he was about five. After calming him down, and working out that it was just the way the towel was hanging which sparked his imagination, I made up a story about the Towel Monster and made him funny and sweet. Worked like a charm, but I had to keep ON making up stories about the towel monster! Small price to pay, though, and it was fun!
My dad’s stories were about Marvin the Martian, who had a charming and rather literal way of looking at Earth…they were a lot of fun, but I really loved my mom’s stories because she would get quite sleepy while telling and they would turn into stream-of-unconsciousness tales.