The final Telling Bee

Recently, Wilkinson held an evening event for the Telling Bee. All the storytellers who told at the daytime Bee were invited back to work their magic one last time.
Once again, we started the Bee in the gym, this time with an audience largely made up of parents and grandparents. Storyteller Dan Yashinsky happily was able to join us also to experience the students efforts.



Here are some of the highlights from the evening:

Ailie told her story of snapped elastic and missing underwear; this time including a nice tribute to her Dad (the subject of the story) who was in the audience. A large round of applause followed this amusing and confidently told tale.

Ruby was up next, reminding us all of the perils of going to Starbucks when it is icy outside...

Matthew retold the folktale "Silly and Sillier", a story about some extremely silly individuals. Matthew gave each of the characters their own voice and once again showed a real flair for storytelling.

Fatima told her story about the worst day of her life. It brought a tear to more than a few eyes to hear such an innocent story about what must have been a very fearful event for all concerned at the time.

Our final act for the gym, Logan, once again managed to charm the audience with his recount of a tornado. Following his story, Logan decided he needed to take charge of events and did so alarmingly well. I am beginning to wonder why I spent so long preparing myself to speak to the audience!

Following this stunning start to our event, everyone moved upstairs to listen to around another 60 storytellers in a more relaxed classroom setting. I wandered up and down the halls listening to small parts of many stories. Judging by the proud faces I saw in the audience, these students did an exceptional job once again telling their stories.

All too soon, groups started to finish and families started to leave for home. Hopefully everyone involved in the evening was able to take away some happy memories.

The Telling Bee book is now nearing completion (in part, that is why it took so long for me to post this response to our event!). It has taken many months to prepare but it is going to be well worth the effort in the end if the latest draft is anything to go by!