this woman’s work

Noah the storyteller

Apr 28, 2003 Parenting

One of Noah’s very most favorite things is calling his grandparents up and leaving l-o-o-o-ng crazed messages on their answering machine and then going over there to listen to them. I’ve been thinking about getting him a tape recorder with a mike but last night I was cleaning out my “work area” (read: the community desk covered in notes to myself, Brett’s obscure papers and several lovingly drawn Pokemon portraits) and found the old hand-held tape recorder my mom gave me.

Noah is in absolute heaven.

Apparently he’s had stories just bubbling up inside of him and no way to share them. He’s doing “chapter books” that are stories about Peanut the super puppy. For some reason, he tells them all in this wavery falsetto that he says is Peanut talking. He starts them all of in his regular voice like this, “My friend Peanut has a story to tell. Here it is.” And then he launches into the story with this strange voice. (For those not in the know, Peanut is our dog.)

All of the stories follow the same basic format: Peanut is walking in the woods with her friends (here he sometimes recites their names) when they come across something or someone dangerous, like an enormous bear or a fox who wants to have them over for dinner (catch the play on words there) or sometimes it’s a minor thing like a squirrel that Peanut and her friends want to eat. Then they run and run and run (occasionally even running up a tree because, says Noah, “In these stories dogs can climb trees”) before Peanut remembers she is SUPER PUPPY! And then she flies around and bashes everyone, saving the day.

I asked Noah if he wanted me to try and write any of his stories down and then he could draw pictures.

“Well,” he said, in that 6-year old drawl. “It’s really like a comic book and I know exactly how it looks so I don’t need to draw it. I can see Peanut in her cape all flying around already.”

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