August House

While Bobby Norfolk was visiting the town of Kumasi in Ghana in the summer of 1993, a woman told him, "At four-thirty every afternoon, we try to gather together and have Anansi time." At her invitation, Norfolk attended the community-wide afternoon...

Award-winning storyteller Bobby Norfolk brings his talents to six traditional stories. A mixture of classic stories and lesser-known folktales, these are all performance-tested audience favorites, capturing Norfolk's trademark energy and humor....

Mothers: everyone has one, and each has a story to tell. Every mother knows that the realities of good parenting call for heroic measures. As these tales from ancient traditions show, most rise to the call the best they can. Whether these mothers have...

The "home theater" will never replace the drive-in theater in America's imaginary landscape. Donald Davis recalls a summer working under the lax supervision of Daff-Knee Garlic, owner and operator of the Sulpher Springs Big-Screen Drive-In Theater in...

Braces hurt. Braces are embarrassing. Braces are inconvenient.Many get fitted with them at the very time of their life when their self-confidence is lowest and their self-consciousness is highest.This coming-of-age story, created and performed by...

This is a double set of double stories. The first set is made up of a story my Grandmother told me about when my mother broke her arm...twice! The second story in this set is my story of when we broke my little brother's collarbone...twice! It is...

Remember the Monster Stick? The greatest-and most dangerous-fishing rod ever? What about Buck, who simply "ain't no ordinary dog"? Anyone who has seen the Lepp boys perform — or read their book, The Monster Stick — will never forget them.In this...

Mama believed the woman who dies with the most fabric scraps wins. She saved scraps from odd sewing job for neighbors. She saved buttons from old winter coats and birthday dresses. Mama had a button from Daddy's first uniform and another from...

Who doesn't remember the holiday sights and sounds and smells of Grandma's house? The living room aglow with a tree that touches the ceiling, the clatter of silverware and kitchen pans, the banter of relatives, and especially Grandma's bright...

For 16 years, Donald Davis has performed during the Christmas season at Fearrington Village, a unique destination community near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Hundreds of people fill the seats in this historic barn, now converted for use as an events...

In rural North Carolina in 1951, despite parental reassurances, a typhoid shot hurt. It hurt even more when the children saw who would be administering the shot: Miss Winnie, a large, dictatorial nurse who had been "especially built by the nursing...

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, to parents who were both former slaves. From this humble and impoverished background, he went on to achieve international recognition for his work, which he alternately rendered in...

Featuring Margaret MacDonald's storytelling accompanied by Richard Scholtz's autoharp and dulcimer, this recording is full of lively, playful fare. These selections are ideal for expanding into song, dance, and creative drama. Includes stories adapted...

Joe Davis was in his mid-40s when he became a father, and the experience he was able to apply in raising his sons lent creativity to his parenting.The five stories here recall the wisdom of fathers with humor and rich detail: a visit to the...

Everybody loves scary stories, and nobody loves them more than children. Storytellers Richard and Judy Dockrey Young gathered these stories from the most discerning of critics: the children themselves. These are the tales kids tell most often and most...

Everybody loves scary stories, and nobody loves them more than children. Storytellers Richard and Judy Dockrey Young gathered these stories from the most discerning of critics: the children themselves. These are the tales kids tell most often and most...

The best friend of our youth has no replacement, ever.Though we may start out as "two peas in a pod", we often lose touch with one another. In this affecting tale of two adults who reclaim their childhood bond after 30 years apart, the comforts of...

There was a time during Donald Davis's college freshman year when he wasn't really sure if he wanted to claim his hometown of Sulpher Springs, North Carolina. But a boy by the name of Stanley Easter changed his mind."The year after that," he recalls,...

Close your eyes, and you can almost feel the rocking of the chair as you listen. Kathryn Tucker Windham's gentle Southern accent winds its way through these childhood and adult recollections, while her traditional wisdom and sharp sense of humor spin...

Down in Thomasville, Alabma, a long time ago ... Kathryn Tucker Windham's mellifluous Southern voice guides us—by words alone—through a town where a parrot sings along with the doxology at church and the telephone operator can tell you anything you...

Old Man Hawkins was a larger-than-life character among deer hunters, or — more precisely — among tellers and hearers of tall tales. His self-proclaimed method of hunting deer by holding a mirror in one hand and his rifle in the other — pointing...

Eve has her own story, and she's been waiting millennia for Barbara McBride-Smith to tell it. It's the same for Mrs. Noah. Talk about misunderstood or under-appreciated women! McBride-Smith singles them out for her trademark feminist humor.Following...

Most people who decide to take the mule ride through the Grand Canyon focus on the spectacular beauty around them. Donald Davis, however, found his focus trained sharply on the 48-inch-wide trail whose ledge drops 700 feet to the Colorado River....

Nowhere are Kathryn Tucker Windam's transcendant themes of community, fidelity, and family more evident than in these stories. The author calls them "recollections of a happy Southern childhood," but her avid admirers would tell you they are much more...