For the Holidays, you can’t beat timeless stories. Order your Odds Bodkin story drive today!
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ASK AMAZON ALEXA TO PLAY “BEDTIME STORIES”. SUBSCRIBE AND GET 42 ODDS BODKIN AUDIO STORIES
Back when Odds Bodkin was creating his folktales and fairy tales collections for young children, he first issued them on cassettes. As an audio technology, they were soon replaced by CDs. Next came digital downloads, mp3s and other formats, where the audio music business still exists today in the streaming world.
Odds Bodkin’s early recordings are now available on Amazon Alexa. Just ask her to open “Bedtime Stories”, buy a subscription (it’s not much) and find a treasure trove of child-safe stories, all told with characters and live music.
Just ask for an Odds Bodkin story.
What will Alexa choose?
Teacher Reports that Odds Bodkin Stories Used in New Online Lab Support Core Standards
Story Preservation Initiative, or SPI, has launched something new. The organization, renowned for its interviews with famous people–interviews that older students can access online–has added something new for younger students, K-3.
Odds Bodkin stories on audio with full curriculum follow-up. Stories that support core standards. Visit here.
Here’s a fall 2019 teacher review:
“There are five wonderfully told stories along with PDF multifaceted lesson plans. The stories are engaging and Odds Bodkin has amazing effects to bring each to life. The fables are definitely geared to celebrating our natural world. The Evergreens, for example is a fable about deciduous versus evergreen trees and about why they loose their leaves. The lesson plans give you multiple ways to tie the books into different core standards.”
If you are a K-3 teacher, or know one, please share this information. There are five Odds Bodkin stories available in this exciting new program.
A TRUSTED VOICE
Studies warn nowadays that increasing numbers of young kids are entering school without deep trust in an adult figure. Any adult figure. You can blame it on family breakup, drugs, poverty, or just frenetic modern life in general, I suppose, because even in affluent families, plenty of kids have to compete with their parents’ smartphones to get their attention.
Whatever the causes, Story Preservation Initiative (SPI) has decided that my audio stories for young kids might help by providing a consistent and trusted voice in their lives.
I’m honored and delighted to have my works viewed in this way, and to be part of a school-based program like SPI’s.
LEARN MORE.
FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS: A Fairy Tales Show and a Workshop in NH
Abbott Library in Sunapee, New Hampshire hosts Odds Bodkin for a day of fun family events on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019 starting at 10:00 a.m.
All events are FREE TO THE PUBLIC.
FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS Storytelling Concert at 10:00 a.m.
First, a FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS storytelling concert where Odds tells two rollicking fairy tales–The Little Shepherd and the Tale of the Kittens. Each story is filled with voices, sounds and music on different 12-string guitars. Odds offers an introduction to the magic of fairy tales and how they help kids grow as he plays Celtic harp.
FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS Workshop for Grades 3-5 at 11:00 a.m.
Next, an hour-long workshop where kids learn the classic story elements of a fairy tale, experience fun imagination exercises and learn to create fairy tales of their own.
STORYBLAST FAMILY CONCERT for All Ages at 6:00 p.m.
An evening performance of Odds Bodkin’s best, funniest, most family-friendly tales. Performed with music on guitars, Celtic harp and other instruments.
GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
Open up an Odds Bodkin Epic Drive and here are the tales you’ll find:
Buy it today and receive a free autographed Odyssey Poster/Map with your purchase. A full color poster on one side, and a map of the Mediterranean world on the other, this 16″x20″ map shows where, according to scholars’ best guesses, all 42 episodes of The Odyssey took place.
The Neuroscience of Music in Real Time
At my web site I’ve got a new picture of my ugly mug, recently taken by my friend and fellow storyteller, Simon Brooks. I’ve been heavily right-brained all my life, and it shows in my left eye. It’s always slightly larger and more alive than the other one, no matter how much I try to keep my right eye open to look passably normal.
The right hemisphere of the brain–the seat of imagery and intuition–is connected to the left eye via the optic chiasm. Ask any brain scientist. They’ll confirm it. Same thing with the left brain; it’s wired up to the right eye.
You’d think since I use language in my work, it would be the other way around, but nope, the imagery side remains dominant, so I’ve just lived with it since my twenties and worn sun glasses whenever possible.
Of course, in my approach to storytelling, there’s music happening. According to Wikipedia on the Neuroscience of Music, the music part is a bit more complex:
Sequencing
Motor sequencing has been explored in terms of either the ordering of individual movements, such as finger sequences for key presses, or the coordination of subcomponents of complex multi-joint movements.[19] Implicated in this process are various cortical and sub-cortical regions, including the basal ganglia, the SMA and the pre-SMA, the cerebellum, and the premotor and prefrontal cortices, all involved in the production and learning of motor sequences but without explicit evidence of their specific contributions or interactions amongst one another.[19] In animals, neurophysiological studies have demonstrated an interaction between the frontal cortex and the basal ganglia during the learning of movement sequences.[26] Human neuroimaging studies have also emphasized the contribution of the basal ganglia for well-learned sequences.[27]
So it looks as if they’re really not sure what’s going on, other than while creating and playing music, all these regions are firing away together in happy harmony.
I’ve been thinking about all this because coming up in a week, I’ll be doing it in public down in Cambridge, MA, for a return appearance at Grendel’s Den. ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS. Two 12-strings and a harp. Lots of language. Lots of music.
We’ll see how it all spins together this time.
As for my ugly mug, you needn’t worry. Half the audience listens with their eyes closed anyway.
Every Time We Get In The Car
Last year Mike repaired my snowblower, and this year he came back, just yesterday, to fix the generator. It now runs like a dream and so here in New Hampshire, I’m finally ready for winter. If you lose power and it’s twenty below, with no furnace going, the water pipes freeze in the walls and burst.
“You know that story you gave me?” he asked. “My kids love it. Every time we get in the car, they want to hear it. Even I like it. The other copy’s in my wife’s car.”
I wasn’t sure what story I’d given him. “Which story was that?”
“Little Proto. They really like Ankles. ‘Play the Ankles part’ they say. You gave me those CDs, remember?”
I hadn’t remembered but did now. “Which story was it?” I asked, having made three Little Proto dinosaur recordings for young kids.
“The one about Magnolia Island.”
Ah, I thought, that was the first one. “How old are your kids?”
“Three and five.”
“Have they heard the other two?”
“You mean there are others?”
“Yeah. Better than the first one, in my opinion. Hang on, I’ll see if I can find them.”
I headed inside and upstairs. Might as well give Mike CDs for his kids. T-Rex Adventure is my favorite, with King Geoffrey the Rex and Old Wrinkles the Triceratops doing their grumpy old men thing while rescuing Proto. I found the two CDs, one with a cracked case but with a playable CD inside (we just sell digital versions these days) and gave them to him.
“My kids are gonna freak out,” he said, smiling and taking them.
“Play the one with the T-Rex on the cover first,” I advised. “It’s really funny in places. You’ll meet Bump. He’s a fun character, like Ankles. Volcano’s Fire is the third story, where Proto’s growing up.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Enjoy them.”
Later, at work inside, I heard the generator humming and went to the garage. Mike was finishing up. “I’ll get some ethanol-free gas up in Goshen like you recommended,” I said.
“Makes a huge difference with engines like these.”
“Okay, great. What do I owe you?”
He’d been at the house for over an hour. I was expecting a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty dollars for the service, since he’d also gotten the snow blower’s drive belts back on. In winter, the snowblower ranks up there with the generator.
“Make it fifty,” he said.
I looked at him.
“Hey,” he said. “You gave me two CDs. My kids are gonna freak out.”
Odds Bodkin’s Shop
Do Silicon Valley Execs Keep Their Kids Away From Screens? Yes.
Why do Silicon Valley executives raise their children technology-free? This headline from The Guardian says it all: TABLETS OUT, IMAGINATION IN: THE SCHOOLS THAT SHUN TECHNOLOGY.
They do it because they want their kids to be imaginative and mentally healthy, basically. Looking out over the wasteland of anger, narcissism, teen suicides, obesity and incivility that social media networks have caused in young lives recently, many of these tech wizards are scared for their own kids.
Like King Midas, everything they touched has turned to gold. But don’t forget the old story: When King Midas touches his own daughter, whom he loves, she turns to gold, too. That’s the end of her.
Digital Addiction begins with kids interacting with screens. The colorful, always-changing worlds they find are so much fun that when they’re suddenly without their screens and look up to see the real world around them, it simply moves too slowly. It’s boring. This causes a kind of free-floating, stimulation-seeking depression.
Down through the ages, kids engaged in creative play with toys and role-playing, attempting to do what grownups did, but in miniature. It has always been this way. But not now, not in the dopamine-laden world of video games and social networks. Not unless the kids’ lives are balanced by getting them away from these devices.
It’s ironic. Now that the digital masters of the universe are having families, too, they realize this, smart as they are. Heck, they built these things to be addictive. And yes, they love their kids, too.
So what is the indispensable skill they want their children to develop at these very expensive, very selective kindergartens and elementary schools where less is more?
Imagination.
What grows imagination best?
Creative outdoor play, kids playing with kids, without any adults around.
If that’s not possible, what’s the next best thing?
Storytelling.
As Einstein said, “If you want your child to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.”
Wait a moment, you might say. Odds Bodkin is using digital media at the moment. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?
Well, no.
That’s because my imagination developed long ago, when I was a kid, playing outside all day, and then, after coming back home, listening to my dad tell me stories.
BUSINESS INSIDER article for more
An In-Depth Audio Interview About Creative Storytelling’s Secrets
With 12-string guitar in hand, Odds Bodkin sits down with interviewer Brother Wolf to answer questions about creating character voices, vocal effects and music in Bodkin’s brand of muse-inspired storytelling. Here are the secrets this “modern day Orpheus” (Billboard) uses to create his unique performance art. Click to listen!
SUMMER IS COMING/Intelligent Learning for Well-Adjusted Children
SUMMER IS COMING/Intelligent Learning for Well-Adjusted Children
Here’s a song I wrote and sang long ago with my friend, Steve Schuch. It’s based on my childhood memories of watching The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland.
Take a listen. It’s free.
Happy Summer.
Odds Bodkin
To discover other songs, music and stories, visit here.
STORYTELLING AFICIONADOS DISCOVER ODDS BODKIN’S MASTER DRIVE
STORYTELLING AFICIONADOS DISCOVER ODDS BODKIN’S MASTER DRIVE
The complete works of a master musical storyteller. From folk tales for children to epics for teens and adults. Serious savings on a lifetime of imagination.
