Six Ways Storytelling Can Enrich the Holiday Season

Storytelling is such a central part of what it is to be human, that when any group of people gather they will end up telling stories. Holidays often create the perfect context for storytelling. In Australia, we've just finished celebrating Christmas. Of course, for some families, different religious or secular holidays may be celebrated across the year. These often coincide with holidays, religious observance, special food, music and in some cases, the exchange of gifts. Even if you don't have any religious convictions, you might well look forward to holiday seasons as a special time to catch up with family and friends. This inevitably leads to storytelling as we gather.

Let me share six ways that storytelling can enrich family time together during holiday times like Christmas.

1. Establish some traditions with reading

Our family has just finished celebrating Christmas. Like some other families, it is a time of significance for your family, as we attend church services and gatherings with family and friends. In the lead up to this event we would often share some books that centre on the central Christian message of Christmas. Books about Christian traditions have been shared in hundreds of different titles some are closely centred on the Christian message, others not so much (I shared lot of these books in my last post HERE). In classes that I taught I always found time for the Dr Seuss classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and many others. A story that centres on the theme that Christmas at its very core is about a special gift. Not so much about getting, but giving.

2. Sharing story through songs & music

Holiday time is often a time for music, and with this 'story'. We often overlook the key role that music plays in storytelling. Whether we are talking about religious songs or music in general, music and story are often intertwined. When people celebrate together, it often ends in music and song. As a child, I grew up in a house where music was sung and played often. This included lots of popular ballads, country, blues and pop. As well, as singing Christmas carols when we went for our annual holidays at the Lake Macquarie, on many a hot summer afternoon we ended up singing. At my grandparents’ home at Wangi Wangi, on a hot afternoon after a swim, we would end up with community singing on the front verandah of their house. At times 50-80 people would come out of their tents to join us on my grandparents front verandah. My parents would end up performing and leading the campers as they joined in.

Above: My parents performing at the time in a community concert

 

 

3. Sharing family anecdotes (but avoiding the controversial family ones)

Another wonderful thing about holiday seasons is that you have time to sit with our children and share "can you remember the time that..." stories. These build children's knowledge of the family and the world, as well as their own ability to share stories. "Tell us the story about the time you got lost in the bush Dad". "What was it like going to school when you were a kid Mum?" "What was the funniest thing that happened at school this year"? "Tell us another story Grandad from when you were a kid". As you share your own stories as parents, you help to build family traditions, as well as teaching them how to tell stories themselves.

4. Engage your children in preparations 

Having time to do things with your children as you prepare for a time like Christmas will often create those 'spaces' where things can be shared as we make the preparations. Taking them shopping isn't what I have in mind (this often doesn't end well!). I was thinking more about getting your children to help you to decorate the Christmas tree, or the family room. This isn't just for fun or to fill in time. It does do this, but it allows space and time to share stories and for your children to become better storytellers themselves. In the case of parents, you might share stories of the type "I remember when...". "Do you know where this Christmas decoration came from?" "Do you remember when you made this silver star"? Or perhaps, while you're getting your children to help make some decorations you can simply share jokes and anecdotes, or reminisce. One of the most special times at our house, is decorating the tree each year with decorations that our children made over 30 years ago! Just looking at precious decorations given to us by other people as gifts is a great language and story telling event. "Do you remember who made this?" "Did you know that this decoration was on my mother's tree". Stories will flow!

5. Get children involved in using 'procedural texts'

Above: Preparing a pudding with my granddaughter

One of our family's most treasured traditions is the making of the Christmas pudding.  As a child, my grandparents involved my sister and me in this activity. This was always one of our special family events at Christmas. I implemented the same tradition with my daughters, and more recently, my grandchildren. As well as the fun we have as we prepare for the cooking, we have to follow the recipe, share stories, and lick the bowls. This is a great language event as stories and anecdotes just flow. As we cook, literacy is also being acquired. And of course, the stories shared while we make the pudding become part of shared family history. "Tell us again Dad about the time you...".

Above: The 2018 boiled Christmas pudding cooked with my daughter Louise

6. Involve your children in the making of presents, cards and gifts

Some of my favourite presents as a parent have been the gifts that children made for me. It is fun to involve your children as we make preparations for the exchange of gifts. This might be making yummy food, lollies or snacks to share with neighbours. Once again, there are recipes to follow, stories to tell, gift labels to write, and much more. Card making is just one fun non-food way to link literacy activities to holiday seasons. As well, children might make a book to give to their grandparents or their teacher. Making items for family and friends to hang on their tree is a great literacy activity already mentioned above.

Summing up

Literacy and storytelling are implicated in pretty much all aspects of life. Holiday seasons are just one context that offer opportunities to ground storytelling in 'real' life. As we engage with our children every day, there are numerous ways that the stories we share can help to build their knowledge and their proficiency as users of language whether in spoken or written form. As well, we can develop a shared history that binds family members together.

Making Books Come Alive!

It's the summer school holidays in Australia, and it is hot. So forgive me if this post seems more suitable for summer than a northern hemisphere big freeze. But your turn will come so you can explore these ideas when the weather clears (or I'm sure we could think of some good winter examples).

One of the most wonderful things to do with any book is to try to contextualise it by visiting the setting, or a place that is close to the setting for the book. There are some great reasons for this:

• It helps young readers gain a stronger sense of the setting and its importance for literature (see my post on 'Visiting the 'real' place in 'My Place' HERE).
• It helps young writers to see how a place can be represented in words - how do we turn the sights, sounds, smells, tactile experiences and even tastes, into written language.
• It enriches the experience of reading a book and deepens understanding of the book and its content.
• It enriches other disciplines like geography, history and science (HERE).

If you are a parent on holidays, or a teacher wanting to plan an excursion with a difference, why not make a book come alive with an outing that enriches their knowledge and deepens their reading while teaching them about writing.

I have already written a number of posts that talk about some of these opportunities. I'll mention some of these as well as pointing to some other options that I haven't mentioned before.

1. Books that are situated in clearly identified settings

a) My Place

I wrote a post back in January 2009 (here) about a family excursion to explore part of Sydney that was the setting for the wonderful book 'My Place' (Nadia Wheatley & Donna Rawlins). 'My Place' was published in 1987 for distribution in Australia’s bicentennial year (1988) and makes a strong statement about the fact that Indigenous Australians were here for thousands of years before white settlement (there isn't space to unpack this). It is a very clever book that takes one suburban block (and the surrounding area) and tells the story of this place in reverse chronological sequence, decade by decade, from 1988 back to 1788 when the first British Fleet landed at Botany Bay. The overall meaning of the book is shaped by multiple narrative recounts of the families who have lived in this spot, 'my Place' and the changing nature of the physical landscape and built environment.

Our excursion as a family around the streets of Tempe and St Peters in Sydney enriched my appreciation of the book and my grandchildren's sense of the place. As well, it gave my grandchildren a great introduction to Australia's history since white settlement in 1788 and it deepened our understanding of the book. The book has been used as the basis of a television series which screened recently in Australia (here).

There are many other wonderful books that are situated in specific places that can be explored after, before or during thew reading of a book. Here are three more.

b) Make Way for Ducklings

Make Way for Ducklings (1941) was written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. It tells the story of a pair of mallard ducks that choose a small island in a pond in the Boston Public Garden to lay their eggs and raise their young. The plot traces the mother taking the ducklings for their first major outing. She leads the ducklings ashore and straight to the highway but has trouble (not surprisingly) crossing the busy road. A policeman named Michael who likes feeding peanuts to the Mallards, stops traffic for the family to cross. This wonderful book won the Caldecott Medal in 1942. If you visit the garden today you can view the pond and the island and retrace the steps of the ducklings. There is a statue in the park of the mother and her eight ducklings.

c) Alexander's Outing

'Alexander's Outing' (1993) by Pamela Allen is a wonderful picture book (like McCloskey's) that is set in the centre of a busy city. This time it is Sydney and the beautiful Hyde Park (particularly the Archibald Fountain). Alexander is a duck who lives with his mother and four brothers and sisters in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. Alexander's mother becomes bored and decides to take the family for a walk. Alexander is separated from the family and falls down a deep dark hole.

How do you get a duck out of a small hole in the ground? Hint - think about water and ducks!

d) Playing Beatie Bow

'Playing Beatie Bow' (1980) by Ruth Park is a novel for 10-14 year olds that once again is set in a precise location that can be explored. This is one of the books that I featured in a post on historical fiction last year (here). When Abigail Kirk joins in a traditional chanting game of 'Beatie Bow' in modern day Sydney she sees a mysterious urchin girl in the background and follows her. Unwittingly she stumbles into the past as she follows her up stairs and down alleys in the Rocks area of Sydney. She encounters a strange and different Sydney and finds herself walking the streets of the colony of New South Wales in 1873. Abigail is taken in by the Bow Family who believes that she is a mysterious 'Stranger' who is said in tradition to arrive to save 'The Gift' for future generations of Bows. Abigail remains in this past world to fill her role and in the process falls in love for the first time.

The Rocks is a wonderful area of Sydney right on the harbour where white settlers made their homes in the early days of the colony. The period in which the book is set (1870s) can still be easily imagined as you walk streets that have changed little in the last 150 years.

2. Books that evoke a more generic sense of place

a) Wind in the Willows

I wrote a post about Kenneth Grahame's classic book the 'Wind in the Willows' to mark the centenary of its publication. This wonderful book is read less by children today but deserves our attention. This is rich narrative, with wonderful characters and word choice and sentence structure that is as close to perfect as you can get. But there is more. Here is language that is symphonic, with the rhythms of each sentence and the choice and ordering of words matching exquisitely the settings, situations and atmosphere that Grahame has created. Or perhaps it’s the other way round.

You can also view the wonderful DVD version (HERE), you can see the story in the form of a play in a setting that evokes much of the wistful summer charm of Grahame's book.

While the Cornish village of Lerryn lays claim to being the setting for 'Wind in the Willows' it might just as well have been any one of a number of other small villages or stretches of lazy English rivers like the Thames where Grahame eventually retired after leaving banking, spending his life "messing around in boats" just like Ratty. There are lazy rivers all over the world that resonate and help to evoke the rich experiences that Grahame writes about. In fact, a stroll along many of the creeks that I frequented as a child in Australia with their native She Oaks (a species of Australian Casuarina tree), low flying kingfishers, slow moving water and glimpses of water rats and low flying dragon flies, evokes the same emotions (for me) as Grahame's novel.

Why not find a creek bank, pack a picnic basket and head off with 'Wind in the Willows' and read it to your children this summer (or next summer in the Northern Hemisphere). I can't walk along the banks of an Australian creek on a hot day without hearing the echo of some of Grahame's words (for example):

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing

b) Looking for Crabs

'Looking for Crabs' (1993) by Bruce Whatley could be set on just about any Australian beach and probably plenty of white sand beaches around the world. It is a simple picture book about a family outing and as always the children begin to look for things. But where are the crabs? This amusing story transports you straight to the beach. Reading it after or before a beach outing will enrich the experience and the reading of the book.

c) And lots more

There are many fine examples of children's books of this kind that can be read while visiting other places during holidays. For example:

'Hairy Maclary From Donaldsons Dairy' by Lynley Dodd - find out what a 'Dairy' really is in New Zealand as this little dog and his friends have lots of adventures.
'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch' by Ronda & David Armitage - what would life be like living in a Lighthouse on any coastal outcrop (watch out for pesky seagulls!).
'Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill' by Dorothy Wall - you probably need to be in Australia to appreciate reading this fantasy about Australia's bush and its animals. Find the Banksia men in Banksia Trees, Gumnut babies on every branch....
'The Wheel on the School' by Meindert DeJong - life in a Dutch village and the relationship between people and the natural world
'The Hockey Sweater' by Roch Carrier - gain an insight into ice hockey and cultural life in Canada
'Night of the Moon Jellies' by Mark Shasha - find out about life in coastal New England (USA)

And many more!

3. Books that transport you to specific time periods (as well as places)

I wrote a post last year title 'Making History Come Alive With Literature' (here). I talked about this in detail then, but briefly, my point was that our appreciation and knowledge of history can be enriched by good literature. In keeping with this post, it works in reverse as well. Visiting a place rich in history can enrich your experience of literature.

For example, while visiting Fremantle in Western Australian in September last year I visited, the Western Maritime Museum, specifically, the historic shipwrecks gallery. A central part of this museum is part of the wreck of the Batavia that floundered on uncharted rocks of the Western Australian coast on 4th June 1629. The circumstances surrounding the Batavia and the fate of its crew and passengers have made it the most famous of the early ships to flounder upon Australia’s at times treacherous coast. This is a true story of death, murder, treachery and survival.

In the museum gift shop I discovered Gary Crew’s adolescent novel ‘Strange Objects’ (1990). Crew's story takes part of the tragedy of the Batavia and tells a story that illuminates this historic event while telling a powerful human story. Visiting the museum, viewing the wreck of the Batavia, travelling along the coats of Western Australia and reading Crew's story all enriched one another. History and place also enriched the literary experience and the reading of the book increasing my appreciation of the historical events.

Of course there are many more books that evoke specific periods of time as well as places. In many cases the book doesn't need to be related to a physical place but it could be. Here are just a few:

'My Hiroshima' by Junko Morimoto - a picture book that offers a real life account of the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima through the eyes of a child who stayed home that day sick rather than going to school.
'The Machine Gunners' by Robert Westall - live through the Blitz bombings in World War II Britain as a group of young boys collect the ultimate war souvenirs as they drop around them.
'Slave Girl: The Diary of Clotee, Virginia, USA 1859' by Patricia McKissack - learn about a 12 year old slave girl living just before the American Civil war who longs for freedom.
'The Thieves of Ostia' by Caroline Lawrence - I visited the ruins of Ostia about 10 years ago (it's incredible!) and wish that I'd read this mystery about Flavia and her friends in the ancient Roman port in the 1st century AD before or just after the trip.

In Conclusion

The above are just examples of the many wonderful ways that linking books with places, experiences or specific time periods can enrich literature, language and learning.

I would love to hear some of your favourite examples.

Related Posts

All my posts on Children's Literature (here)

'Key Themes in Children's Literature' (here)

Visiting the 'real' place in 'My Place'

I've mentioned Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins wonderful book “My Place” (1987) a number of times on this blog. I used it as an example in my post on 'sense of place' in literature (here) and also focused on it as a book to read to children in a post on Australia day this year (here). In response to my second post my daughter Nicole read the book again to her three children (Jacob, Rebecca and Elsie). Jacob and Rebecca became even more interested in the book and this generated some more research and her own blog post (here). Nicole discovered that there is a 'My Place' walking tour of the area on which the book was based and yesterday we did the tour together and Nicole invited some others as well. The tour is run by a small historical society that has its home at St Peters Anglican Church one of the buildings mentioned in the book. Our tour guides were Laurel and Bob. Laurel has lived in the house that her parents bought in 1938 since her birth in 1945. She has watched the physical changes and different waves of immigration described in the first half of 'My Place' as part of her own life. She loves Tempe and isn't in a hurry to leave.

'My Place' was published in 1987 for distribution in Australia’s bicentennial year (1988) and makes a strong statement about the fact that Indigenous Australians were here for thousands of years before white settlement (there isn't space to unpack this). It is a very clever book that takes one suburban block and tells the story of this place in reverse chronological sequence decade by decade from 1988 back to 1788 when the first British Fleet landed at Botany Bay. The overall meaning of the book is shaped by multiple narrative recounts of the families who have lived in this spot, 'my Place' and the changing nature of the physical landscape and built environment.

The book has been very successful. So successful in fact that the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) is currently producing a 13 part drama series (details here) that will tell the story of one house in South Sydney told by the children who lived there over a period of 130 years. The producers suggest that it will be "an engaging living history series for children, and aims to show that everyone is part of history, and that every place has a story as old as the earth." They also plan to have an interactive website that will allow users to walk through the three dimensional recreation of the My Place house and see it change from generation to generation of children. My Place is a Chapman Pictures production for ABC TV. One source has suggested that the movie won't actually use the Tempe/St Peters area for shooting, but this remains to be seen.

Some local landmarks that feature in the book

Like many books the physical details of setting in 'My Place' don't perfectly coincide with the place that was the inspiration for the setting. The authors have taken some licence with the physical setting but have sought to accurately portray the generational, environmental and social changes that occurred from 1788 to 1988. So the general waves of immigration and the impact on the Indigenous people and the environment are fairly accurate. So too is the general shape of physical sense of place, particularly the positioning of the Cook's river, the creek that runs into it (and that becomes a canal), the brick pits, the mangroves, the rock oyster beds (you'd be brave to eat these today).

There is more licence taken with the built environment although even here the authors have maintained general faithfulness to street patterns and many building locations. The 'big tree' that is a constant is now in someone's backyard (not near McDonalds), the Church and cemetery (1838) are where St Peters is today, the brickyards (1868) are accurately located (and still exist), there was a 'Big House' (1828) across the Cook's river which Willy the Boatman ferried people to and it was most likely Tempe House that has been preserved but now has a backdrop of high rise 'posh' apartments. Mr Owen's 'posh house' (1838) did exist (although now it has a clothing factory on the site) but it wasn't located near what we think the authors mean by 'big tree'. As you can see, the authors have achieved a close paralleling even of the built environment.

Above: Tempe House, the 'Big House' across the river

Making your own version of 'My Place'

One of the wonderful things about Wheatley and Rawlins book is that as well making a strong point about Australian history and the place of Indigenous Australians it is a mini primer for local history. And as any local historian will tell you, there are as many stories about a place as there are people and their lived experiences. My Place tells one story about this place but others could have been told. For me, the tour of the area threw up lots of potential stories that I'd like to know more about. For example, when visiting St Peters church Laurel mentioned the tragic level of infant mortality in the 1800s and the fact that of the 2,000 people buried up to 1894 in the St Peters cemetery that two thirds were children and two thirds of these were under 5 years old. There are individual stories that I'd also like to know more about, like Willy the Boatman who ferried people across the river in the 1820s and is buried in an unmarked grave.


Parents and teachers might consider using the brilliant framework that Wheatley and Rawlins use in their book to do their own historical research on their community and perhaps even produced your own book. Here are a few ideas.

a) Australian children might like to use the same chronological framework with the addition of 1998 and 2008. Overseas readers of this blog could use your own framework that in many cases could cover longer timeframes and perhaps bigger time intervals. Children could be encouraged to use the same recount genre as Wheatley and Rawlins with the narrator always being a child who has lived in the place that is the focus of the retelling and who uses a map and drawings to support their story.

b) As a variation to the above you could change to genre and instead write a series of diary entries, structure it as a series of post cards or letters sent to family members in the 'home' country.

c) A further variation might be to tell the story of the place through the eyes of the Indigenous people or the immigrants who move into the area. Some might choose to add a period of Indigenous history to the story prior to European settlement.

d) You could use family history as the framework and precede known family history within Australia with that of previous generations who lived in another country, and other places. This variation would involve research on multiple 'places'.

e) Some might also like to tell the story of a house that has been lived in constantly over a long timeframe. I've thought of my own house in this way. The house was built during the 1st world war and has been home to people who were part of the different waves of British, Greek and Italian immigration throughout the last 90 years. But the history of the place can be traced back to the first British Colony (and of coruse beyond). The area adjacent to the home was settled by Rev Richard Johnson (1753-1827) the first Anglican chaplain to the British Colony who came as part of Captain Phillips' First Fleet. As well as his preaching and ministry to European and Indigenous people his excellent farming skills and helped to supply grain, vegetables and meat to Sydney from the lands that included what are now parks opposite my house.


The idea of visiting the site of a novel or children's picture book is an exciting way to bring to life aspects of the writer's craft as well as enriching learning about the content of the book in question. My Place is one of many books that lend themselves to this additional layer of enrichment.

Related Links

Wikepedia has some useful information on Tempe (here) and St Peters (here)

Other information

A special 20th anniversary edition of My Place was published in 2008. click here for more details. The new edition includes a new timeline, which traces the history of the characters in the book, as well as the history of Australia.