Because Babies Grow Up

Rebecka is back to give us a full report on the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. Over Labor Day weekend Rebecka attended the Festival with her three children. She introduced us to the Festival in this post. Rebecka has been a guest blogger on Because Babies Grow Up during our series on Emergent Literacy Skills.

Hello again everyone at Because Babies Grow Up! You know that Amber gave our family her weekend pass to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. I’m trying to decide how to tell you how incredible it was. If you read my email about Thursday night’s performance and multiply it by 100 you would have the essence of our experience. The festival definitely has something for everyone. Some tellers are funny, some are inspiring, some are both. Some tell stories from their own lives, some tell beautiful folk and fairy tells, and some tell outrageous tales that started from the truth of their own experiences but grew to the unbelievable.

Story telling is a great way to bring your family together. When you listen to a story together you’re changed together. Later when a family member sees a connection between your family’s experience and a story you heard together they will make a joke or share the connection and you are drawn together by the experience again.

My girls are 12 and 14, and my son just turned 11. The girls wanted to be at every event. They loved everything. Steven however got tired quickly. A few of the tellers just grabbed him and drew him in, but he was not very patient when he had to listen to tellers who didn’t. So I let him stay at home for many of the daytime events. The event that is best suited for young children is Friday night’s Bedtime Stories. If you have small children you may want to only take them to that event. If you do take children to the daytime events they might like the puppet shows better. This year there was also a mime and a juggler.

The weekend was jam packed and we were totally exhausted by Sunday morning, but it was worth it. A great thing about the festival is that it begins Thursday evening on labor day weekend, but the last event is Saturday night so you still have Sunday and Monday to recover before you have to go back to work and school. A weekend pass is only $100, which for a family of five or six is a bargain. We are definitely going to make the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival a family tradition. We think you’ll like it too.

Thanks so much to Rebecka and her family for enjoying the festival and telling us all about it! If you’re sad you missed the festival, I have good news. You don’t have to wait all the way until next September to enjoy the art of storytelling. The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival also hosts a MidWinter Conference in February. This conference includes general storytelling sessions open to the public, but it is so much more. There are workshops on storytelling presented in schools and workshops for adults presented around Utah Valley. This is a great way to experience great storytelling and get your feet wet, too! Happy Storytelling. Thanks again, Cherish Bound for a great event.