Storytelling Minute-mom

Diann Jeppson is an inspiration to me.  Her influence in family education has been felt in thousands of homes.  I've been in her home where I saw floor to ceiling shelves everywhere filled with books.  I asked her to share with you what has helped foster a love of books and reading in her home.  It's no surprise to me---she's a storyteller!  Here are her thoughts:

My parents must have possessed supernatural story-telling powers because they always had something utterly fascinating to share, whenever one of their seven children would ask, "Will you please tell me a story?"  I realized this only after experiencing the challenge of responding to that same plea from my own little troupe of children.  After I exhausted every anecdote from my own life and the lives of everyone I could think of, as well as every story I could remember reading or hearing, the requests continued with insistent regularity.  Something had to be done about my now empty well of stories. What to do . . .

While browsing my local bookstore, I came across William Bennett's then newly published Book of Virtues. The title caught my eye. I began to thumb through it and was instantly struck with an epiphany. This was the answer. This was the water to re-fill my well of stories! I bought it immediately, and smiled all the way home. Now I had a treasury of new stories to tell my children.

I made a game for myself by reading the stories one at a time, to myself, pausing every few sentences to quietly rehearse to myself, the telling the story in my own words. I would then wait for an opportune time--a meal, a drive, or maybe just bedtime--to tell the story I had just read to my children.  I wouldn't allow myself to read and rehearse the next story in the Book of Virtues until I had told the previously read story to my children.  Since each story in that great collection lends itself well to discussion, I took full advantage, and asked questions, compared ideas with other stories, and measured the stories against our own experience.  They provided a perfect platform for some rich and thoroughly enjoyable family discussions.

It took a little over a year, but we finished the entire volume (except fort he poetry, I confess).  My favorite part was the delicious anticipation of watching for the perfect moment to share my most recently read story.  I felt like a story minuteman--always prepared with a story in my mental back pocket--ready at a moment's notice, whenever my children asked, "Mommy, will you please tell us a story?"

I hope you'll visit Diann's website at familyforum.co.  She has wonderful resources and excellent book lists of good reads for your family.