Isn’t storytelling just for young children? Aren’t teens more interested in blogging and surfing and texting? Storytelling for Young Adults replies, “no” and “yes” respectively to these two questions. While teens are a difficult audience for storytelling (due in part to their associations with it as a preschool or library storyhour activity with which they want nothing further to do), De Vos makes a compelling case for using folklore (and some literary tales) with this audience.
Since this book’s original publication in 1991, the world of storytelling has witnessed a huge surge in interest, and there have been many new collections of stories published that are pertinent to young adults. This second edition draws its tales primarily from works published since 1990, and hence works as a supplement to, not a replacement for, the first edition, so don’t discard the original if you get this updated edition!
The first chapter of Storytelling for Young Adults addresses the values of storytelling for YAs (including helping them develop values, imagination, and listening and language skills; encouraging involvement in story and its accompanying emotional release; preserving traditions and culture; and helping YAs become more discerning “story consumers”) and the basic criteria that make a story worth telling (a clearly defined theme, well-developed plot, vividly visual storyline, believable characters, dramatic appeal, and faithfulness to its source material).
Chapter 2 deals with the art of storytelling, including: 1) choosing the right story (it’s appropriate for both the teller and the audience, and the teller has researched it thoroughly and found variants of the story to compare rhythm, style, story structure, and cultural context), 2) performing it well (well-chosen gestures and words, appropriate vocal intonation, a relaxed and humble attitude, and an attention to the immediate feedback provided by the audience while telling the story), and 3) particular storytelling techniques to enhance the performance (strong eye contact, artful pausing, and minimal distractions). The chapter concludes with some suggestions on sharing scary stories with teens, as these seem to work particularly well with this age group.
Chapters 3-8 of Storytelling for Young Adults are organized by themes:
- Tales of the Fantastic: horror tales, ghost stories, and contemporary legends
- Tales of the Folk: folktales and fairy tales
- Tales of Life: romance stories, and family and local history
- Tales of the Spirit: myths, legends, and “pourquoi” tales that describe the origins of the natural world
- Tales of Laughter: tall tales, trickster tales, and numbskull stories
- Tales of the Arts and Sciences: literary tales, fractured fairy tales that alter traditional stories, and stories of word origins.
Each chapter begins with an introductory section providing a definition—or scope—of the theme and citations to the storytelling literature about that theme. This is followed by an alphabetical list of story titles. Each entry contains a short plot summary, complete bibliographic information about the source of the story, an approximate time it takes to tell the story, and any information listed in the source giving further details of the story’s origin. The final chapter provides twenty full-text stories retold principally by De Vos that she has used successfully with young adults.
The end matter contains three alphabetical indices (Author, Title, and Theme) and a bibliography of story collections included in the work. The author index is prioritized by last name and includes only authors of the story collections (i.e., none of the authors included in each chapter’s references are included). The title index includes every story analyzed in Storytelling for Young Adults. The theme index is a bit confusing, using “theme” in a different way than previously mentioned; this is really a subject index that includes entries for geographic regions (e.g., Argentina, China), character types (e.g., animals, birds), ethnicities (e.g., African American, Native Americans), religions (e.g., Buddhist, Jewish), and topics (e.g., death, devil, food, greed), to name a few.
Storytelling for Young Adults is an incredibly valuable addition to the storytelling literature, and it will make a useful addition to a school library media center’s reference collection, particularly if the media specialist wants to try sharing stories with teens. The stories included here are, indeed, well chosen for their appeal to adolescents.
The book is not, however, without faults. Of primary concern is that some of the story synopses read more like teasers than complete story summaries, leaving the novice teller at a loss to know the complete plot. For example, the story entitled “The Singer of the Song” is summarized: “A young prince learns a drastic lesson when he assumes that a pure voice reflects a loyal heart” (122). The reader gets merely an inkling of an underlying theme of the story but must track down the source collection to find the actual story. This makes Storytelling for Young Adults less of a stand-alone resource and demands extra work for budding storytellers that could have been done for them.
A strength of the book (but a weakness of the indexing) is De Vos’ close attention to sources and attribution. Good folklore scholarship demands attention to this measure of authenticity by which researchers document the legacy of authors and/or performers. It is unfortunate, however, that De Vos only sporadically includes this additional information in her indices, as doing so consistently would have made them more useful and complete.
Finally, De Vos mentions in her preface that “because the number of stories included in this volume is limited, they are only representative of the stories that appear in the collections referenced” (xvi). In short, Storytelling for Young Adults does not analyze each collection of stories completely. While this may reduce its value as an authoritative and comprehensive reference tool, it perhaps increases its value to the storyteller by foregrounding the best stories from these collections.
Used in conjunction with a strong school library folklore collection (to avoid having to interlibrary loan many of these collections), Storytelling for Young Adults provides a thoughtful introduction to the world of storytelling for young adults and an excellent collection of stories that are appropriate for them.
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[Review length: 1002 words • Review posted on January 16, 2012]