Articles 
Over the years I have published my Newsletter, Telling Tales, and written other articles as well. Here are a few samples from past Newsletters:
From Telling Tales | Fall 2002
Story Magic
Last January I had the honor of telling stories for the families of the Westchester and Rockland firemen who were lost in the September 11th tragedy. It was amazing to see tales work their magic on these folks who had just had their lives turned upside down.. Stories can speak to us in so many ways — teaching, soothing, entertaining. But, most wondrously, stories can bring us face to face with the beauties which are within us. I still see the children waving their arms at the end of "Jack the Chicken Eagle" singing "You’ve got to try like an eagle, fly like an eagle, dip and slip and glide like an eagle — Everybody do the Eagle Glide!" It was as if a light began to shine not only in the faces of the kids, but in the faces of the parents as well. As storyteller Rob Scutter said, "Stories go out and change the world and you with them. And that’s a miracle."
My Favorite Authors
Rub yourself with the right oil from the right snake and you can wriggle yourself through any keyhole, knothole, rathole, afterward saying to yourself, "Now what?" Flatten yourself flat enough and you can slide under any door, and afterward ask "Now what?" Make your face like a pickle and you may hear people say, "Why not get that fixed?"
What is a Hongdorsh and what do the Hongdorshes do? When they speak what is so, they stand on their right foot. When they speak what is not so, they stand on their left foot. When they don’t know what they are talking about they stand fast on both feet and try to get their feet loose from their foot tracks. It isn’t as easy as you think.
- CARL SANDBERG (Another of my favorite Authors) from "Sayings Among the Hongdorshes"
From Telling Tales | Fall 2001
Stories Can Heal
Last week at a storytelling concert for the children and the parents of the Tarrytown Nursery school, one of the parents came up to me and said, “It is wonderful to see them smiling like kids again.” It was one of the most wonderful affirmations I can remember.
Stories have many powers — they can entertain us, teach us, scare us, soothe us, keep the kids busy, but we often forget one of the greatest powers of stories — They heal us. It is a wonderful and magical power that can’t be matched by TV or movies or Rock and Roll. When the lovers unite or the hero rescues the princess (or vice versa) or the honest brave farmer becomes a king — something deep inside us gets mended. I know it works — I saw it not only in the faces of the kids, but of the parents as well. In this time of anguish, may we each find a tale to help us live wisely and happily ever after.
My Favorite Authors
Magic
Sandra’s seen a Leprechaun
Eddie touched a troll
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblin’s gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing
Suzy spied an elf
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself
Recipe
A hippo sandwich is easy to make
All you do is simply take
One slice of bread, One slice of cake,
Some mayonnaise, One onion ring,
One hippopotamus, One piece of string
A dash of pepper —
That ought to do it
Now comes the problem...
Biting into it!
- SHEL SILVERSTEIN
From Telling Tales | Fall 2000
Stories can come from the most unexpected circumstances. Last year, a disappointment and a bout of insomnia brought me this picture of a leaf-hopper, one of those delightful green creatures that can leap from leaf to distant leaf in a single bound. The story cheered me up instantly. May it do the same for you.
Mighty leaf hopper
High hopping hopper
Heart stopping, sky popping hopper
Light as a whisker
Green as a meadow
Never stops hopping,
Never stops hoping.
"Gotta keep hopping" he cried,
"High as the morning
High as the moon!"
So he bounced and he bopped
With his leaf-hopping might
At the bright silver ball
That hung in the night.
Higher and higher and higher and higher
He hopped like a hopper whose pants were on fire.
Higher he hopped, as high as a flea
"I have hopped where no hopper has hopped except me!"
Still he hopped higher
As high as the night
Till hopped himself
Up and over the light!
"I did it I did it I did it!" he crooned.
"I’m the hopper who hopped himself over the moon!!!"
Just as he hollered his victory cry,
The old man in the wicker chair, sighed,
Folded his paper and turned out the porch light
And the bright silver ball went out of the night.
"Oops," gulped the hopper, as he lay in a faint,
"I guess I just didn’t know my own strength."
Whenever hoppers gather today,
They still tell the tale of the mighty hopper
Heart stopping sky-popping hopper
Light as a whisker, Green as a meadow,
Who hopped and hopped and hopped so high,
He hopped the moon right out of the sky.
- Copyright 1999, Bob Reiser
Contact bob@bobtales.com