Storyreading began circa 1982 at Yale when a bunch of Silliman
(Residential) College students got together to read children's stories and
eat munchies. When those people graduated, many of them went on to jobs or
graduate school in Boston, Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Santa Cruz where they
founded new Storyreading groups. There were some short-lived groups in
Seattle and Wisconsin, and at Princeton, but I don't have any information on
them.
Since then, many new people have joined the various groups. Some groups
have more turnover than others, but there are still a handful of original
members still involved.
Each group has its own personality and its own traditions. However, some
things are held in common. All three second-generation groups have an email
list to which are sent invitations for each week's meeting. Meetings are
held at members' homes.
Jed Hartman wrote a wonderful description of what story reading is, and
how to run your own: Read Us a Story!
What do we read?
What we read varies from
group to group, but the main intent is to read children's stories. How
loosely that phrase is interpreted also varies. Take a look at the Storyreading Booklist, which contains as many books
that have been read at Storyreading as I have been able to list. Some other
authors that didn't make it on the book list, but whom I know have been read
at Storyreading include:
Dave Barry
- P.G. Wodehouse
- Jane Yolen
I'd like to think that Storyreaders were partially responsible for the
creation of the rec.arts.books.childrens
newsgroup. For more information on children's literature, check out the
Children's Literature Web Guide and The WEB:
Celebrating Children's Literature. See below for
more links.
I've gotten a few comments about my naming conventions, so I'd like to point
out that the Boston group (unless things have changes since I was there)
rarely meets in Boston. The Berkeley group meets just as much in Oakland as
Berkeley. The Palo Alto group often meets outside of Palo Alto. And I would
venture to guess that the Yale group occasionally meets off campus. (I know
nothing about the Santa Cruz group.) However, it seems that
most people in each group use the names I use here, while
others may not.
Yale Storyreading is still going strong. Hosting rotates among dorm rooms
and apartments. The group meets on Thursday nights and the mailing list is
administered by Will Ching.
Boston Storyreading was founded in 1986 by Beth Kevles and other Yale Story
Reading alumni. For a while it was mostly Yale and Brandeis graduates. This
was because of Larry and Elizabeth Stone. Larry was one of the original Yale
members while Elizabeth was a Brandeis student. Elizabeth had attended Yale
Storyreading whenever she visited her family in New Haven, and invited us
Brandesians to join when Boston Storyreading was founded. I was there at the
first Boston Storyreading, which was held at the home of Beth Kevles and
Seth Towle. Both Larry and Elizabeth are still Boston Storyreaders. The
group meets on Monday nights. Elizabeth Stone is Autarch and Peter Olszowka
administers the email list.
Berkeley Storyreading was founded in 1987 (?) by Andy Oakland. For a few
years, it stayed in one place, at the home of Charlie and Kendall Farnum,
but continued rotating when they moved away. The group meets on Monday
nights and the mailing list is administered by me.
Palo Alto Storyreading (or Stroy Raednig, as they like to call themselves)
began around the same time as the others (sorry for the vagueness; I'll
change it when I get more info) and was founded by Raymond Drewry, who is
still a member (occasionally). The group meets on Thursday nights and the
mailing list is administered by Pavel Curtis.
Santa Cruz Storyreading was founded by Catharine Lombard and the mailing
list is administered by her. The group changes its meeting date each
semester and currently meets on Mondays.
The concept of having one long reading and many short readings was
initiated (as with most other Storyreading traditions) by the Yale
group. The idea is to have everyone bring short readings each week and for
there to be one long reading, agreed upon by the group, which gets passed
around and read by everyone.
The first such long reading was The Phantom Tollbooth. Boston
Storyreading's first long reading was Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang. Yale and Boston Storyreading continue this practice today.
The Berkeley and Palo Alto Storyreadings have forgone this practice. When
the Berkeley group started, there was only one long reading, but this broke
down into everyone reading long readings. Since this meant confusion for new
and occasional members, we tried, for a while, to have one long reading,
read mostly if not completely by the person who proposed it. This became two
long readings (one fantasy, one non-fantasy) and then degenerated again into
multiple long readings. Berkeley Storyreading's first long reading during
the second period just described was The Princess
Bride. (Charlie says that he can't remember the very first long
reading, but that the earliest he does remember is The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe.) I don't know if Palo Alto Storyreading
maintained ever a one-long-reading rule before I joined, but I'm sure
someone who knows will tell me eventually (Raymond?).
Janet Lafler, Donna Slonim, and I are the only Storyreaders to have been
regular attendees of three Storyreading groups (though not all at the same
time). (Note: It has been mentioned to me that, if you include the
short-lived Seattle group, this would include more people.)
Leon Marr is the only Storyreader to have visited all five existing
groups (in one week, no less)!
In the early days of Boston Storyreading, I wrote a little story.
If you are already a member of a Storyreading group, please let me know what
you think of this page. Did I get any facts wrong? Is there anything you'd
like to have said about your group? Do you know of any appropriate graphics
or links I should add? Do you have a web page you'd like listed here?
If you are interested in attending a Storyreading group, or if you would
just like to get on a mailing list, write to me and I'll forward your
request to the appropriate person.
Some (current and former) Storyreader Home Pages
| Member | Group(s)
|
|---|
 | Matt
Austern | Berkeley, Palo Alto
|
| Natalie Laraine
Bender | Yale
|
| John Tang
Boyland | Berkeley (former)
|
| Lee Campbell | Boston
|
| Will
Ching | Yale
|
| Lenore
Cowen | Yale (former), Boston
|
| Rob Diamond | Berkeley
|
| Fred
Douglis | Berkeley (former)
|
| John Eure
| Yale
|
| Matthew
Feigin | Yale (former)
|
| Byron
Go | Berkeley (former)
|
| Jack
Greenbaum | Palo Alto
|
| Gail Gurman | Boston (former), Berkeley, Palo Alto
|
| Zev Handel
| Berkeley
|
| Danny
Loeb | Boston (former)
|
| Liz
Manicatide | Yale (former), Berkeley (former), Boston
|
| Leon
Marr | Yale (former)
|
| Bryce
Nesbitt | Berkeley
|
| Andy Oakland
| Yale (former), Berkeley (former), Boston
|
| Peter
Olszowka | Yale (former), Boston
|
| Jim
Propp | Berkeley (former), Boston (former)
|
| Katya
Reimann | Yale (former), Boston (former)
|
| Dan
Seidman | Boston
|
| Jay Sekora | Yale (former), Boston
|
| Becky
Slitt | Yale (former)
|
| Moria
Smoski | Yale
|
| Daniel
Westreich | Yale
|
| Julian
Yap | Yale
|
More Storyreading-Related Links
The Apple
Orchard
- ``A place for adults who love children's books.''
- Book Rescue
- This site is devoted to providing out-of-print children's books. It's
a commercial site, but I feel it's worthy of a link.
- Carnegie
Mellon University Etext Library
- This directory contains text for many stories that have been read at
Storyreading, including Alice in Wonderland, Anne of
Green Gables, and Grimm's Tales. In fact, if you wander around in the
directories there, you can find lots of cool stuff.
- Children's Literature Home Page
- This site is the host of the Children's Literature Newsletter and
contains information about upcoming issues, how to subscribe, etc.
- Children's Literature Conferences and Events
- A list of, well, conferences and events.
- Free Online Books
- Dragon Tree Press offers this list of books (mostly children's)
available in various forms for free on the 'net.
- Girls' Series
- As the name suggests, this site is devoted to book series about girls
(e.g., Nancy Drew and Dana Girls).
- Inkspot
- This site describes itself as a ``resource for children's writers.''
- Online Book Initiative
- This is a gopher site with lots of canonical fairy tales. They call
the directory ``Grimm'' but very few, if any, of the stories are Grimm's
tales.
- The Online Book
Page
- A directory of books that can be freely read on the Internet.
- Project Gutenberg
- This site has lots of pointers to online texts, including many of the
same things as CMU, as well as The Little Princess, Peter
Pan, and Treasure Island.
- Robinson's
Read-Aloud Recommendations
- This site is dedicated to the joys of reading aloud. You can order
some books by some of our favorite authors here and find out how the
Robinsons became a "read aloud family."
- Story Resources available on the Web
- This is a page full of great links to story sites.
- The Universal Library
- The mission of the Universal Library Project is to start a worldwide
movement to make available on the Internet all the Authored Works of
Mankind so that anyone can access these works from any place at any time.
These sites are for those mid-week, Storyreading-isn't-for-another-6-days
blues.
Concertina - Books on the Internet
- Illustrated stories, some with sound files (.au)
- Internet Public Library Story Hour
- Illustrated stories, some with sound files (.aiff).
- Parents and Children Together Online
- Illustrated stories and poems.
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Last modified: Tue Nov 4 11:26:01 PST 1997
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