Book Offers Creative Story-Telling Ideas
If my girls inherited anything from my husband, it is his wild imagination and amazing ability to come up with a unique and exciting story on a moment’s notice, time and time again. When they want to hear someone read stories or tell a familiar story, they come to me. When they want something new and thrilling, they go off to find dad. Frequently, when dad is at work, they will find me and be the storytellers themselves.
Emily K. Neuburger is a teacher and artist who wrote a craft book titled Show Me a Story – 40 Craft Projects and Activities to Spark Children’s Storytelling. The idea behind the book is to give children the opportunity to expand their stories, bring them to life through different activities and even have a chance to create new stories through projects and ideas given in the book.
She starts the book with an explanation of the benefits of storytelling and story creation. The book offers many prompts and different ideas in which the caregiver, whether it be a parent, a child care provider or a teacher, is able to assist the child in making connections with their world through their stories. The ideas in the book are also wonderful in creating and further developing a love for learning and overall appreciation for written words. The activities and projects allow for many opportunities to open up communication and interaction between parent and child.
The activities in the book are separated into four sections: Story Starters, Story Evolution, Story Activities and Story Play. Each section has a short yet thorough description of what will be covered and learned in that particular section, as well as how the ideas can be used.
Along with the introduction of each project, the author includes the time it should take to make the craft activities and the materials needed. She also adds both the appropriate age to make the project and the appropriate age to use the creation, which is sometimes different. The detailed, step-by-step instructions are very clear and easy to follow. She cleverly uses attractive, brightly colored photographs to further explain the steps. There are also “Teaching Tips” and “Other Neat Ideas” sections with tools to adapt or add to the learning process.
The book was wonderfully made and I found the ideas to be creative and valuable. My daughters eagerly flipped through the book, begging to make everything they saw. Unfortunately, I did find most of the projects to be a bit unrealistic to complete due to the one to four hour range of completion time for each craft. I do not feel like there is that much time in the day for me to spend on sitting down with my child to complete one of these craft activities, much less the additional time it will take to play with the project once it is completed.
The projects in the book are targeted to be used by children age three through early adolescence, while the production is aimed for five year olds through early adolescence. Though I can probably imagine an eight year old focusing for these long periods of time, I cannot imagine a five year old sitting for one to four hours for a project to be completed.
That said, we were able to use the “Story Sparks,” which are pre-made lists of the Who, What, Where, When and Why’s of a story, and we added them to different colored pieces of paper (color coding the who’s, what’s, etc). We then sat around the kitchen table, each person picked out one detail for our joint story and we told a joint story that had us all in stitches!
Overall, this book is truly a great resource. If you have the time to make the projects, step-by-step, that is wonderful. If you don’t, that is alright too. The book gives you ideas and a foundation to build upon and adapt to your needs and time restraints.
Show Me A Story – 40 Craft Projects and Activities to Spark Children’s Storytelling
By Emily K. Neuburger
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Price: $16.95
www.storey.com
| Easy to read | 5 |
| Quality of Illustrations | 5 |
| Appealed to children | 5 |
| Kept my children’s interest | 4 |
| Ease of crafts | 3 |
| Other material required to complete | yes |
| I would purchase this for my family | no |
| I would purchase this as a gift | no |
| I found the information in this book helpful | yes |
| Overall rating | 4 |
All ratings on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest.
Meet The Reviewer!
Lucia Alami is a mother of five
daughters, the youngest of which
are a pair of one year-old twins.
She enjoys photography, reading,
writing, drawing, playing board
games and doing craft activities
with her girls.
