Tag: The Natural Storyteller

Natural Storyteller catches a Moonbeam

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The Natural Storyteller has been awarded a Gold Medal in the 2018 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards!  Launched in 2007, the awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators, and to celebrate children’s books and life-long reading. The book has already been awarded First Prize in the Purple Dragonfly Book Awards.

Back in April Hawthorn Press launched a competition for schools and groups to win ten copies of The Natural Storyteller by Georgiana Keable, plus a visit from this award winning storyteller and author. The book is a seed packet of tales to open the mind and unleash a love of nature. Teachers were asked to write up to 100 words about how great stories can assist learning about our living planet. Countess Wear Community School, Exeter, won the competition and this Wednesday 10 October Georgiana Keable will visit the school to deliver several sessions of captivating stories to the pupils as well as a camp fire in the early evening.

The Natural Storyteller wins Purple Dragonfly Award

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Purple Dragonfly Book Award announced their winners recently, and we were extremely excited to have one of our books on the list! The Natural Storyteller by Georgiana Keable won first place in the Green Books/Environmental category. Congratulations to Georgiana – we are so pleased and proud.

You can find out more about The Natural Storyteller by following this link, and more about the author Georgiana Keable here. The full list of Purple Dragonfly Book Award winners is available here.


The book is life affirming. All of its stories are about taking delight in creation. It is a journey into storytelling as well as story.

Hugh Lupton, award-winning Storyteller
https://www.hawthornpress.com/books/storytelling/storytelling-storytelling/the-natural-storyteller/

Review: The Natural Storyteller by Georgiana Keable

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Image shows children and animals around a tree, and book title The Natural Storyteller

This review, written by Kevin Avison, originally appeared in the SWSF (Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship) newsletter, Spring 2018. Many thanks!

Georgiana Keable has written a gift of a book that will help teachers, parents and anyone who loves good stories. If we are to preserve human culture from the sort of madness and decline that currently seems all but inevitable, positive narrative holds an important place. We might go so far as to describe well chosen and well told stories as antitoxin for the social ills of our civilisation.

Narrative can open minds and hearts to worlds and experiences beyond the narrow compass of a single individual: through stories we learn compassion.

Georgiana provides a selection of forty-eight stories to fire the heart and imagination of both teller and listener. She also relates her selection to the natural world. Alongside “Story Heart” and “Story mind”, we have groups of stories from around the world, in which trees, birds, animals, earth, water and weather feature. Thus placing each individual is brought to life within a greater narrative.

The book includes an easy-to-use toolkit to help the story-teller, or teacher, inhabit the stories, adding memory and understanding of what they are about. In particular, the “story map” and “story skeleton”, will prove invaluable in assisting hard-pressed teachers prepare story their material. There are also activities, riddles and a host of helpful suggestions and hints. As an international master storyteller with foundations both in Norway and the Britain, Georgiana has drawn deeply from her experience teaching at Oslo University and participating in storytelling events around the world.

Kevin Avison

Buy the book here…

More about the SWSF here…

Competition for Schools and Forest Schools – win 10 copies of The Natural Storyteller

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The Natural Storyteller competition

Are you a UK primary school or forest school group? You could WIN ten copies of The Natural Storyteller by Georgiana Keable, plus a visit from this storytelling author. The book is a seed packet of tales to open the mind and unleash our love of nature. All you need to do is write up to 100 words about how your group needs great stories about our living planet and email to thenaturalstoryteller@gmail.com by 15th April 2018.

Please include a contact name, the name and location of your school class or forest school group. The winner will be contacted by the 23rd April, and announced on Hawthorn Press’ social media. Books will be dispatched within a week and you will be emailed to organise the author visit. This book is very suitable for age 9-11.

To protect our planet, we have to completely reimagine our relationship with the natural world and all its wondrous diversity. Storytelling plays a crucial part in that healing process, as Georgiana so beautifully and powerfully reveals in The Natural Storyteller.

Jonathon Porritt CBE, Forum for the Future

The Natural Storyteller is a gorgeous heart-warming book full of stories that children (and people any age!) can relate to. It is a collection of stories, carefully gathered from all over the world. What steals my heart about this book is that it unflinchingly addresses the turmoil and realities of life in the 21st century. This book is that rare thing: it unlocks emotions, ideas and a wild surge of creativity. 

Imelda Almqvist, Paganpages

Review: The Natural Storyteller by Georgiana Keable

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This review of The Natural Storyteller is from June Kent in Indie Shaman, issue 35. Many thanks to June Kent for her enthusiastic and thoughtful review, and for permission to share it here.

Image shows children and animals around a tree, and book title The Natural Storyteller

The Natural Storyteller is an enchanting book full of beautiful stories together with innovative ideas for practical activities which nurture literary skills and a connection to the natural world.

Author Georgiana Keable has taught storytelling at Oslo University since 1997 and she launched the Norwegian Storytelling Festival. Her stories reflect our relationship with nature and she often travels, asking strangers to share stories with her. The Natural Storyteller contains 48 stories from around the world, re-fashioned for children today, as well as games and activities including follow-up quizzes, riddles, story maps, planting a tree and wildlife tracking. The stories are from a variety of cultures and times; some based on myths and legends while others are real life tales, dealing with interesting topics of historical or current day relevance. All of them are inspirational.

Children are natural storytellers, both in listening and in creating stories and The Natural Storyteller is a wonderful resource, both as a source of pure enjoyment and for educational purposes. However as Keable herself says if you don’t want to tell stories “That’s totally fine! Just enjoy the book” and you will, whether you are reading the stories for yourself, or out loud as a bed-time story or in a story telling circle.

Georgiana Keable is a wonderfully talented storyteller and The Natural Storyteller is an absolute delight. I would highly recommend this book for children, parents and educators but it would also be excellent for anyone of any age who enjoys reading or sharing exquisite short stories with meaning.

Buy the book here…

More about Indie Shaman here…