Ideal for both beginners and more experienced storytellers, this exhaustive primer includes everything adults need to start sharing the wonder of stories with children, from babies to tweens. The lively text imparts easy-to-follow guidelines and practical advice on how, when, where, and why to tell stories. Each chapter incorporates a wealth of delectable folktales to read and tell, plus the authors’ hand-selected, annotated lists containing hundreds of classic and cutting edge children’s books, professional books, and relevant websites. Demonstrating the joy of stories and storytelling, this book:

Provides an overview of the history and types of storytelling
Shows how to select, learn, prepare, and tell stories
Begins with more than two dozen easy-to-learn stories that adults can read today and tell to children tomorrow
Looks at the major types of folk and fairy tales, including many sample stories and booklists
Offers a comprehensive list of stories reworked, reimagined, reinvented, parodied, satirized or recreated from folk and fairy tales
Includes “Favorite Stories to Tell,” a compendium of more than 500 suggested tales, easily accessible by subject and theme, from which tellers can find the perfect stories to fit every occasion and begin to build their own repertoire of wonderful tales to tell
Provides tips for publicizing and promoting storytelling programs


This handbook instructs, inspires, and entertains like no other resource of its kind.