Cathy Spagnoli is American, but she's a storyteller and writer with a special interest in Indian and Asian cultures and their stories. She has travelled throughout Asia collecting tales and telling them through performances, workshops and books. She shares her trade secrets through three resource books, Simple Wonders: Toy Stories to Make and Tell, The World of Asian Stories, The World of Indian Stories and the magic of stories through two picture books, It’s Only A Story and Priya’s Day. Cathy lives in Seattle. Most recently, she contributed to Read Aloud stories.
The tiger, a popular character in Korean art and folktales, is a villain in this origin tale which has illustrations inspired by kamishibai, Japanese paper theatre. Having gobbled up the rice cake-seller and all her rice cakes, the tiger chases her two small children. But they escape. And the tiger? Although in the traditional ending the tiger too dies,...
An ant's curiosity leads to adventure in this chain story of repetition and cumulative images. The illustrations within illustrations drawn in stark white on brown are adapted from the art of the Warli storytellers. The stories are illustrated in a flowing river-like fashion, capturing the pattern of the cumulative tale visually as well.
This is an entertaining, interactive activity book about how little Priya spends her day. Well-known storyteller Cathy Spagnoli imbues the story with the sights and sounds of small-town Tamil Nadu as she uses one sheet of newspaper to make all the objects described in the book, including two hills, a coconut tree and a string of jasmines. Children can...
This omnibus of stories and storytelling traditions from 43 countries across Asia provides an overview of methods and the multitude of stylistic variations. The book then embarks on a journey through fast-changing landscapes of unique, yet unifying cultural experience, presented through the distinctive voices of people. An excellent resource that invites...
Vibrant colours, delicate motifs, evocative pictures, sharp sayings, freewheeling songs... These are the spices that brew in India's folk tradition and flavour its stories. The telling of these timeless stories is an ideal way of engaging comfortably with contemporary concerns, diverse subjects and curriculum workloads in schools today. This 'how to' of...
