The Little Red Hen & The Ear of Wheat

Today, at my weekly session of The Barefoot StoryClub, one of the regular members made my day! O is a two-year old boy who has really responded to the club's format. Each week his confidence has grown and he has got more and more involved. This morning, he volunteered to play the little red hen in our second telling of our story for the day. Often, I find that pre-school children volunteer to take a part and then get all shy and change their minds after a short while. Not so for O today! He donned the red apron to represent being the little red hen (this apron has been many things in many stories!) and scritched and scratched in the earth to find the ear of wheat. He was, quite simply, an absolute star and it is a joy to see how he is developing over the weeks.

That's why I love running The Barefoot StoryClub. It's just so rewarding. The Club is for pre-schoolers and their parents/carers and I have been running it for about 3 months now. I've gone about it in a low-key sort of way - in other words no advertising - just while I'm developing the format and the stories. Each week I tell a story orally, making it as interactive as possible for the children (and grown-ups!). Then we make a craft item related to the story. So, today we made hen puppets out of paper bags, tissue paper and lolly sticks. I really believe that in making and doing it's all about the process NOT the end result and I do try and encourage that with the adults! My daughter's hen was not so much red as green, the beak was on the back and it had one lollipop stick leg - but she made it with no intervention from me and she's very proud of it. She knows it's her hen and that's what matters. After the craft the children gather in again and we re-tell the story but this time we use various simple props (such as the red apron!) and it turns into improvised drama!

Quote of the day: "Just bring your imagination..." The Barefoot Storyteller!

My first Women's Group

I went to my first ever Women's Group on Friday night. "Moontime" has been started by a wonderful friend of mine who is a brave and fearless woman. My only real knowledge of women's groups before this was based on my reading of various feminist tracts from the seventies - not an altogether positive or relevant picture for 2008.

Happily, my misconceptions were blown away! The first thing I noticed was that our village hall was full of peace...no small children running around at toddlers or playgroup! The peace stayed with our small group of women for the rest of the evening. There were nervous smiles, joyful laughter, fearful tears as we brought to mind something we wanted to Give Away. Then we jumped with purpose over the fire (well, some candles actually, health and safety after all!) after expressing what we wanted to Invite In to our lives.

We were a small group - only six of us - and for at least half it was all very new. But everyone embraced the evening in the spirit of which it was offered. Hugs abounded at the end and I think most of us will be back next month.

Only the moon has secrets,
The moon in her silvery home,
And in this hour of the evening
She'll share them with you alone.

You can trust the moon to hold you,
Keep you from fear or from harm,
Go with the moon on her journey,
Feel yourself safe in her arms.

Keep what you see on the journey,
Keep what you see as your own,
After the bright silver journey,
I'll whisper you all the way home.

From: Mrs Moon Lullabies for Bedtime, Clare Beaton
Published by Barefoot Books

Welcome to The Barefoot Storyteller's new blog

Well hello and welcome!

I've decided to try a new host for my blog and blogspot does seem to be one of the more user friendly sites. Now all I have to do is try and update this blog a tad more frequently than my last one - OK so that won't be hard! But every journey starts with one small step and in this case it's more like every blog starts with one small post.


I was inspired today to get back to some serious blogging after writing up an interview for mumandworking.co.uk. Watch this space - hopefully it will be published soon. My answers were rather long so no doubt someone will give it a good edit but hopefully it'll be ok.


Business is busy, busy, busy at the moment. Storytelling bookings are coming thick and fast which is great. I'm also very excited about the Barefoot Books Young Storyteller of the Year Competition as part of the National Year of Reading here in the UK. More on this very soon...

The Barefoot Books Summer Storytelling Sale is now in full swing with lots of amazing bargains to be had. If you love Barefoot Books then now is the time to stock up on all those titles you don't yet have in your library!

Well that's all for now...except for my quote for the day:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Albert Einstein