You might have noticed I use this illustration a lot in my storytelling materials. It was drawn in 2005 for the cover of Storytelling Magazine. (Yeah, I Know! Who would have thought there was a storytelling magazine?! That's one of the things that has changed in this world in the last 12 years. Less magazines.) But it was fun to do. I have years of pictures of children I have met in my travels. I used those pictures as references for this piece of art. It is a pretty good representation of what I see when I come to a school to perform. There are kids who are bored, or creeped out, or excited, or just plain happy to be out of class......and, of course, the ever present nose-picker. The transformation of the audience is always thrilling. The energy of an audience who's attention is scattered all over creation, slowly led to the same world that I describe with my voice, and they create with their imagination. We worked out the numbers last year and we can estimate that nearly 3 million children have seen my performances over the years. (That doesn't include my work in the theater.) That staggers my imagination a little. It also brings me a lot of encouragement. It's an enormous blessing to do what you love, and to share it with others.
