I was searching for online sites that rate books and came across one by a woman who is described as an author and storyteller. Have any of you ever had a professional storyteller visit your school? How does it compare to an author visit?
We have had many storytellers, and I think that they are more interesting than author visits. Author visits for the upper grades tend to be a tad boring because very few that I've seen really have that magic to engage the students (I'm talking about chapter book authors... picture book authors tend to be more "fun"). Storytellers, on the other hand, make their living by engaging their audience. A really good storyteller can capture the interest of every single person in the room regardless of age. I've had my students become so enthralled by storytellers that they immediately want to begin writing their own stories or they want to research stories to read.
We had a yearly visit from a Native American storyteller. The kids loved him. He was very expressive and made them laugh.
We had one when I taught in KY - she told Anansi the spider stories - it was fantastic. I still remember her 25 years later!
