“Storytelling improves listening skills,
which are directly linked to reading achievement.”

Ken Goodman
Reading : A psycholinguistic guessing game
Journal of the Reading Specialist 126-135

Sharri McGarry - An insight

I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember. I was the fifth of six children and we lived in a rambling four-storey town house. It was a magical house, with rooms beyond number, cupboards to hide in, a spooky cellar and of course older children’s STUFF to nosy around! Of two things I could be certain - my mother could always be found in the kitchen, and my father was a typewriter. I would get home from school and the click-clack would be coming from behind a locked door and I would say “What’s that?” and my mother would say “Oh – that’s your father.”!

I soon recognised his name on the books that took pride of place on our living room book-shelf, though it took me longer to figure out that he also wrote under pseudonyms. And I have never been able to brandish a book by Julie Bonner and say with any degree of aplomb “My father wrote this!”

My own need to write soon made itself clear by the rising pile of exercise books next to the bed I shared with my youngest brother. I would write down the stories I made up for him before we went to sleep – stories of Other Worlds that we could reach by twisting the buttons on our headboard. More books were stored in my den – a tiny under-the-stairs cubby hole where light streamed in the bottom half of a glorious stained glass window.

My mother was Irish and my father’s roots lay in Ireland, so every year we would pack ourselves into a red and white minibus called Willoughby and travel across the Irish Sea to spend a month in Donegal. We ran barefoot over the springy heather with my cousins during the day and in the evening sit at the feet of the old ones in a smoky room, where tales of faeries and demons took the place of the modern television.

As a consequence of these experiences, when I write my stories, I write them as a means of passing on a story – in a storytelling style.

Sharri McGarry has created a cutting-edge setting for storytelling. It is no surprise when you think of the warm and creative family background that she has grown up with. From skilled musicians and artists, to writers like her father, who wrote many titles among those including the 'THUNDERBIRDS' and 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' adventure annuals!

On occasion Sharri also makes radio appearances discussing these interesting topics and giving us samples of her sublime story telling.

 

The teller of stories has a sacred trust – a power to entertain, to inspire, to share emotions, to educate. A good storyteller can calm a child's mind, can open a portal of imagination and possibilities, can educate in a picture format.

Fairy tales and folk tales have, of course, a part to play in children's education. However, I have chosen to update these tales, to create stories that speak to the child of today in a way that the old stories can not now do, to provide stories that my children prefer.

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