|
|||||||||
|
 |
||||||||
|
Born and raised in Norway, I met my first troll at the age of three. Luckily for me, it turned out to be a dead troll, and I came to no bodily harm. But the experience shaped my childhood and my understanding of the natural world as a place alive and full of mysterious creatures and stories. Growing up, I never planned on being a storyteller or a writer. My parents' plan was that I should become a secretary and then one day marry the boss! All that changed when, during my senior year in high school, I received the Crown Prince Harald Scholarship to Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I went to the United States intending to stay just a year. But then I fell in love with a pre-med student named Steve. Naturally, I wanted to stay longer. To help pay for college, I got a job in the children's library. I had grown up in a very literate home. My father was a dealer in old and rare books and manuscripts and our house was an antiquarian bookstore filled with everything from 13th century illuminated manuscripts, to first editions of The Jungle Book, to letters written by Napoleon Bonaparte. I had been a voracious reader all my life (Napoleon's letters smelled of cigar. In my mind he'll always have a cigar hidden in that one hand.). But now, for the first time, I was exposed to the writings of people like Dr. Seuss, A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, and C.S. Lewis. Pretty soon I was in love, not just with Steve, but with children's literature as well. I spent nearly 32 hours a week (on the job) reading every book in the children's library. One thing the library did not have were the staples of my own childhood: the fairy tales of Asbjørnsen and Moe, the Norse myths, and the great Norse sagas. In no time, I found myself telling anyone who would listen stories of trolls and other strange creatures which had peopled my childhood. To my delight, I was soon telling stories all over the state of Minnesota. I finished college, went to graduate school, married Steve, and got a master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. All the while, I kept on telling tales and even wrote my master's thesis on using storytelling to teach English to foreign students. No matter what I did, storytelling and children's literature were soon involved. I began to write down my favorite stories when my three children (Emily, Even, and Erik) were all in school. I find that my writing process has been shaped by my experience as a storyteller. When I work on a story, I spend a lot of time telling it out loud to find the right rythm and pacing. I even record myself so I can hear different versions. And when I feel stuck, I always tell my story to groups of children. Somehow, with all those faces looking up at me, I seem to know exactly what it is I need to say, what can be shortened or cut, and what needs to be played up. It's like magic. Much of my writing goes back to the world I experienced as a child, and still do—a world alive with trolls and mysterious hidden creatures which are all around if you only know how to see them. I love stories about ordinary people who rise above their normal capacity to do great deeds, stories about the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary, and stories about the greatness that lies within each human heart. I love telling and writing stories because to me, the world is made up, not of atoms, but of stories. To understand ourselves, each other, and the world we live in, we must study and tell stories. An old saying expresses this well: "When the bond between heaven and earth is broken, even prayer is not enough. Only a story can mend it." |
|||||||||
 |
The Adventures of Thor the Thunder God He is the biggest and mightiest of the gods. If he tightens his belt, he doubles his strength. If he swings his hammer, lightning flashes. When he races his billy goats across the sky, their hooves kick up huge thunderclouds. And when the folks below in Middle Earth hear a boom of thunder, they always smile, for they know their loyal Thor, protector and defender of civilization, has once again brought order to the universe. Told and retold often and with great affection, the Thor stories have been around since the days of the Vikings. Here, illustrated with high drama and written with humor and skill, are ancient stories made accessible and fun. |
||||||||
 |
Noah's Mittens We all know the story of Noah building the ark. Who would have guessed, though, that his woolly friends aboard the ark would help him make his most delightful discovery? With one of the world's oldest tales as its setting, Noah's Mittens is an inventive and humorous book about the miracles taking place all around us—even with the most ordinary things, like wool and water. |
||||||||
 |
The Hidden Folk: Stories of Fairies, Dwarves, Selkies, and Other Secret Beings Selkies, fairies, gnomes, hill folk, river sprites—do you believe in them? Perhaps among the flowers, beside a mountain, or near deep waters you’ve caught a glimpse, once or twice, of what you thought might be the silvery shadow of a dwarf, or a hint of a fairy’s wing, or the tail of the water horse. Or was it just the odd light of dusk or dawn playing tricks? As Lise Lunge-Larsen’s magical, timeless stories reveal and Beth Krommes’s enchanting scratchboard illustrations capture, the hidden folk are there, all right: you just have to know where—and how—to look. Awards |
||||||||
 |
Race of the Birkebeiners Reading Guide available from Minnesota Storytime When they went into battle they wore no costly armor, just birchbark wrapped around their legs, and so they were called Birkebeiners, which means "Birchleggers." It is the year 1206, and deep in the snow-covered mountains and valleys of Norway the fiercest warriors in the land struggle to ski a baby to safety. They race against the greed and inequity of the rich, against the very weather of Norway. They race as the only way to save a child prince and bring peace to their country. Here is a true, untold story of both bravery and tenderness. Mary Azarian's strong, sure woodcuts capture the warmth and ruggedness of medieval life, while Lise Lunge-Larsen's dramatic telling is direct and mesmerizing. Awards |
||||||||
 |
The Troll With No Heart In His Body Awards |
||||||||
 |
Legend of the Lady Slipper Awards |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
