Choices, Choices! #1 - Children’s Stories, From Africa to Mulberry Street

I hope that over the course of today, I will be able to add the other two blog posts that I hope to write, and you can pick which one you would like to comment on (though if you are feeling adventurous, you can comment to all three).  The other two will be a response to Dr. Burton's post on Syllabi and a commentary about my interview with an Ancient Near Eastern Studies Professor on the Phoenicians.  I am excited to write them and share my experiences, and I hope you enjoy reading.  

This past Friday, I did something atypical, and got a few strange looks because of it.  I attended the weekly Storytime at the Museum of Peoples and Cultures, and learned about the role of spiders in African and Caribbean folklore.  The other patrons at the event were mothers and grandmothers of toddlers, and of course the children themselves.  After the stories, we made our own spiders by tracing our hands without our thumbs and I helped a mother of 3 cut out her son’s paper hands.  It was a neat experience for me, and something I would like to repeat. 

I had the opportunity to learn about another culture in a way that we don’t really think of: the stories they tell their children.  I guess this was more of a focus as part of folk knowledge, but a key ingredient that I feel like we are missing while talking about oral knowledge are the stories that are told to teach the children.  For example, both of the stories that were read aloud to us were about Anansi the spider, who is a main, repeating character in African tales, and who is usually thought of as a mean trickster.  However, in one story, Anansi gets what is coming to him, because he wants to trick someone out of their fish, but they trick him first and he gets what he deserves for his mean-spirited plots.  This story tells me that you should be honest with people, and only get the reward that you do the work for, and I am sure that is what the Ashanti people (an African tribe) were trying to teach their children as well.  Having a storytime itself is an important hangover from oral traditions, reminding us that the books that were once just stories are best back in their original format, read out loud to our children.  I loved the event and it was good exposure to some light history and great stories from a different culture. 

Dr. Seuss Books - My Personal Favorite 

One of the Stories We Read

Reading children’s stories again made me reflect on my personal research over the summer, in preparation for my job as an RA this fall.  I had the opportunity to research about the life of and read a lot of works by a famous children’s author, Theodor Geisel, who you might know as Dr. Seuss.  It was a really cool experience and I have a greater love for his books and stories now because of my research into his life.  But I also had the opportunity to ask some interesting questions that I recently revisited in my mind, along with applying the new knowledge and experiences I have gained in this class.  I asked such things as: why is Dr. Seuss famous? Why does everyone love his stories?  What makes his books so appealing over all the others? 

I believe it is due to the great “readability” of them, that they are a written narrative in the format of an oral storytelling.   They have all the rhymes and silly characters that help you remember the plot and the lessons that it teaches with ease.  Catch-phrases like “a person’s a person, no matter how small” and “Sneeches on beaches” repeatedly show up, in mirror of other oral conventions.  (If you can’t quote at least a piece of Green Eggs and Ham by heart, you were a sadly deprived child.)  His crazy pictures help as well, but illustrations are more of an invention of the written institution copying folk knowledge than a carry-over from oral tradition.  These stories are beloved by children and adults and have been since the first day they were published.  (See this timeline for an idea of how long that really is.)  When you start teaching a child to read, Dr. Seuss books are some of the favorites, because they use simple words and oral conventions that help children associate what they already know (how to talk) with what they are trying to figure out (our abstract alphabet and written language). 

In all, I love children’s stories, because what we tell and teach our children is what brings us back to who we really are and what we really want to be.  I have loved the new ways of thinking that I have acquired through this class, and being able to apply them in different settings.  It really is amazing!