Family fare.

Kids May Enjoy These Tales Told Again

August 19, 1994|By Nancy Maes.

Telling stories at North Park Village Nature Center makes perfect sense because folklore tells us much about the world around us.

"There are many stories that tell how natural wonders came to be," says storyteller Helen Rosenberg. "For example, there are stories among different Native American people about how the eagle got his feathers or how fire came to Earth, and there is an African folk tale about how the hippo, who wanted to swim, had to make a deal with the king of the universe that he would not eat the fish and he had to agree to open his mouth every so often so that the god would see that he wasn't eating any."

During the Storytelling Festival at North Park Village Nature Center this weekend (co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago Department of Environment and featuring storytellers from the library), Rosenberg will tell another tale typical of nature lore in which animals band together to help each other. This one is called "Wombat Stew," about a wild dingo dog who catches a wombat and wants to have him for dinner.

Before the victim gets thrown into the boiling water, his friends come up to add items to the stew. The platypus adds mud, the emu adds feathers, the blue-tongue lizard adds flies. "They get the dingo to taste the stew before he adds the wombat," explains Rosenberg, "and it tastes so horrible he runs off into the woods."

The story comes complete with a song and, during the telling, young volunteers get to hold onto puppets depicting the characters made out of plastic pop bottles and paper bags.

Children will also get involved in another story if Rosenberg tells a Russian folk tale, "The Giant Turnip," about a vegetable so big that even many people working together can't pull it out of the ground. "In the end it's a tiny little bird that adds enough muscle to pull it out," says Rosenberg.

While this story depicts the theme of animals coming to the aid of humans, Rosenberg adds, "There are also stories about children who go hunting, but rather than killing the animal, they befriend it."

That spirit will be found at the Storytelling Festival, where children will find ways to befriend the natural world. They will make hats called Floppy Toppers and create journals in activities offered by NatureConnections, an ongoing grant project at 43 libraries in Chicago funded through the Herman Dunlop Smith and Ellen Thorne Smith Fund.

"Both items are made out of recycled paper, and kids can decorate the cover of the book and then either draw or record what they see on their nature walks," explains Jane Sorenson, NatureConnections project director. "Since this is a storytelling festival, we want to remind children that stories come from books and that there are many things in the library which can enhance their love of nature."

Nature, however, is a scarce commodity for young urban dwellers.

"Kids see an awful lot of concrete, but the North Park Village Nature Center itself is such a wonderful place in the city," says Rosenberg, "and children will hear stories that can help them gain an appreciation of nature."


Storytelling Festival, stories, music, crafts for children and guided nature walks, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, North Park Village Nature Center, 5801 N. Pulaski Rd., free; 312-744-5472.