The timeless structure, unsentimental fantasy, and deep connections with human nature which characterize traditional Fairy Tales are at the heart of the storyteller’s craft, yet the genre often gets short shrift in our repertoires, performances and discussions. Fairy Tales deserve better treatment! So says the Fairy Tale Lobby.
Your hosts are storytellers operating as a Discussion Group under the auspices of the National Storytelling Network. We invite all story lovers to join us and participate in the discussion. Each month we will ask a question about the genre of fairy tales and solicit your advice and guidance. The question will appear here and also on The Fairy Tale Lobby Facebook page and the Storytell Listserve.
In slightly more formal language, here are the purposes of The Fairy Tale Lobby Discussion Group:
1. To encourage storytellers to include Fairy Tales in their performance repertoires;
2. To advocate the value of Fairy Tales among producers, educators, and events planners;
3. To educate storytellers and the general public regarding the importance of Fairy Tales in the lives of adults and children;
4. To serve as a venue for conversation among storytellers, librarians, educators and scholars on the topic of Fairy Tales;
5. To provide opportunities, such as online cues on Storytell, FBStorytellers and other media, for discussion and education about Fairy Tales;
6. To heighten the awareness of NSN members and leaders regarding the importance of Fairy Tales;
7. To serve as a resource for supporting any efforts on the part of NSN and others to include Fairy Tale material in publications, conferences, festivals and other channels;
8. Focusing primarily on Fairy Tales, we believe our efforts would also encourage the many local and regional storytellers whose repertoires consist mostly of traditional narrative forms: folktales, legends, and myths as well as Fairy Tales.
I too am new to this blog. I think this quote sums up my feeling from goodreads.com site.
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Albert Einstein
I am new to this blog, just called it up getting ready for work.
I find the right sidebar’s reporting a storyteller’s dilemma in the face of
administrators who fears the parent phone calls and another’s doubt that fairytales will hold the sophisticated adults,
This reminds me of a story where that happened.
I had just finished a program of fairytales to upper el. kids who were absolutely mesmerized, laughed on cue, buzzed when buzz is good, etc…. A parent came upto me on the side of the stage immediately after I finished red in the face, rabidly offended that I would bring up such topics (dysfunction, abandonment, hauntings, and magic!).
I apologized for offending her sensibilities, she continued heatedly and before I could edit, it came out:
Clearly what these stories report are not part of your reality, but indeed, I must confess that I find much in them which reflects the world I see. Have you opened the papers recently? War on unarmed civilians is rampant. People are displaced from their homes by the thousands. Have you dirven down a back ally at night recently- seen anybody sleeping in a cardboard box? Know anybody from Miexico, or any other America south of here? Howzabout Iraq, Afghanistan… have any Hawaiian friends? My hope is that in their couched symbolic language, the stories will prepare the children for these realities and hopefully a few more answers. We have not done too well by the unfortunates around us- perhaps nobody told us fairytales when we were young. Excuse me.
Jeff Gere
in Hawaii