Showing results by author "Bill Gordh" in All Categories

Welcome to Story Party: The Complete Collection, a curated collection of some of the very best storytelling for kids. With live performances from the most imaginative storytellers around the country, children will feel like they’re a part of the audience as they listen, sing and clap along. This Complete Collection is filled with hours of great stories, tons of wonderful performers, and enough twists and turns for a long drive with the whole family.

Brer Rabbit lives in the Briar Patch, and so cannot have a garden. He remedies this by taking from everyone else's garden. He loves peanuts and goes into Sister Fox's patch and eats a bunch, until he hears her coming. She then builds a fence, but he digs under. Then she makes a rope trap and while she's home, Brer Rabbit steps into the rope trap and is now hanging upside down. He can't get out but when he hears Brer Bear coming; he thinks up a trick.

A hunter is out and hears some geese flying in formation overhead. They are singing! He shoots one of them, and it falls from the sky but continues singing. He brings it home, and he and his wife pluck out its feathers. As each feather is plucked, it flies out the window. They put the goose in the oven, and they can still hear it singing from inside the oven. After a while they bring out the goose and put it on a platter on their dining table. Just then the flock of singing geese come flying through the window.

There was a king who was a fair and wise ruler who had three daughters. He was fair in most things, but he could not stand ever to admit that he might be wrong. He felt he should make all the big decisions for his daughters. He called them together and asked if each of them agreed that he would make all the important decisions for them since he was so wise and their father. The two oldest daughters agreed, and the king embraced them and told them he would always take care of them.

Brahma throws a party for the animals, and one representative of every kind of animal heads for the party. The celebration begins. Everyone is there except Turtle. Brahma wonders where Turtle is, but the party goes on. Finally Turtle arrives. Brahma asks Turtle why it is so late. It says it wanted to come to the party, but every time it started to leave home it started missing home and stayed a little longer.

Sister Fox tries to get Br'er Rabbit by inviting him to go fishing with her on her rowboat. She knows that he can't swim, and she is tired of being tricked. She also knows that he loves fish and will not pass up an opportunity like getting to fish from a rowboat. They get out in the middle of the lake and sit there singing. Sister Fox is singing about her favorite lunch - rabbit! Br'er Rabbit cannot swim and is getting nervous.

The rabbits lived near a beautiful pond up in the hills. The elephants bathed and drank from a pond to the south. The elephants' pond dried up. They began looking for a new pond. Finally they came to the rabbits' pond. When they saw it, the elephants stampeded toward the water. The rabbits went flying in every direction as the elephants stomped around in the water, spraying and playing. The rabbits did not know what to do. The old grandmother rabbit got an idea.

A boy was always wishing for things he didn't have. An old magician told the boy if he put salt on a magpie's tail, he could have any wish he made. The boy went out with salt into the woods. All the magpies flew away. One finally spoke with him and told him if he brought her a nice clasp knife, she would let him put salt on her tail.

Seven children (traditionally told with boys) are playing a rock game in the space where the dances are held in the village. The mothers call for the children to gather some corn so they can make corn soup. The kids just keep playing. The mothers keep asking. They keep playing. The mothers get mad and put rocks in the soup.

Raven can be either a bird or a man. As a man, he can pull down his pointed hat onto his face, and he transforms into Raven bird. The world is dark. The sun and moon and stars were taken by an evil wizard, and he kept them locked up in his big house on the hill. Raven says that he will bring them back. He flies to the house, but he cannot get in. He decides to play a trick. He pecks on the front door and then flies off and hides behind a tree.

There is a harvest festival in the village. Everyone contributes. Coyote and his wife decide to make a vegetable stew. He tells her if she will clean the pot and boil the water, he will do the rest of the work. In the morning, she does her work and when the water is boiling, wakes Coyote to do the rest. He makes excuses to get her to do the work of gathering the vegetables. This happens again and again until the stew is all ready, except for salt. She tells Coyote to travel to Salt Lake to get the salt.

A poor miller told the king that his daughter could spin straw to gold. The king was delighted and ordered the daughter to come to the palace. He showed her a room full of straw and told her she must spin it into gold by the morning or die. She did not know what to do. She cried. A little man appeared who, after receiving a necklace, spun the straw into gold. The king put her in a larger room full of straw and told her the same thing. This time the girl gave the little man a ring.

Coyote saw Rabbit sleeping under a tree. Often Rabbit tricked him, but this time Rabbit was asleep! Coyote pounced, ready to eat. Something up in the tree gave Rabbit an idea. Rabbit asked, "Could you wait 'til I do my job for you to eat me?" Coyote asked what the job was, and Rabbit told him she had to shake the tree to ring the bell for all the little bunnies to get out of school. Coyote decided he would rather eat some little bunnies than a skinny old rabbit.

Gecko eats a mosquito. Yum. Then he settles into sleep. Gecko can't sleep. Firefly keeps flashing its lights. Gecko goes to the chief. Chief goes to the firefly. Firefly says it's Woodpecker who is knocking on a tree, trying to tell everyone there is an earthquake, and that is why firefly is flashing. Chief goes to Woodpecker. Woodpecker says it got the message from Frog. Frog says it is not saying that. It is saying that Ox is dropping plop on the road. Ox says it is just trying fill potholes caused by Rain.

Mouse Deer was down by the river one day when Crocodile swam up and chomped on little Mouse Deer's leg. Mouse Deer could not pull his leg from the clamped jaws of the crocodile. Mouse Deer did some quick thinking and began talking about how lucky he was that the crocodile had accidentally chomped on a stick instead of Mouse Deer's leg. Mouse Deer picked up a stick, which he extended from his body. Without thinking about it, Crocodile let go of Mouse Deer and chomped on the stick.

Caterpillar is small but has a big voice. When Rabbit goes out and leaves her door open, Caterpillar decides to play a trick on rabbit. It crawls inside rabbit's house and slams the door. When rabbit returns, she gets scared because she sees scratchy marks on the ground and her door is closed. She asks who's in her house.

Nasruddin made a bet with some friends that he could stand all night long outside, in the middle of the square, with no clothes on. They all said it was too cold. They all decided that if he could make it through the night with no heat, they would make him dinner, and if he failed he would cook them dinner. He went into the square. As it got later it got colder. Colder and colder and colder. Nasruddin was about to give up and go inside to get warm when he saw a candle in a window across the square.

Twin brothers were the best of friends. When they grew up they became partners and grew corn. They shared the work and what they sold. One evening in the threshing ground, after they had worked all afternoon, they decided to spend the night there to make sure no thieves stole the results of their hard work. In the middle of the night, one of the brothers woke up. He looked at his sleeping brother and began thinking about him with his wife and children.

A traveler met another traveler walking through an African jungle. The sun was going down, and they knew that soon some of the beasts would be out hunting for food. They stopped in the next village and asked the chief if they could stay for the night. The chief welcomed them but told them that if either of them snored, they should probably go to the next village, because his people hated snoring so much, if someone snored they would sharpen their knives and kill the snorer.

A king with a son and a king with a daughter decided it would be great if their children married. The prince loved the idea, but the princess made a demand. She wanted three rings - one from the stars, one from the moon, and one from the sun. Otherwise she was not interested. No one knew what to do. The prince's father offered half his kingdom for a solution. The wise ones offered nothing of use. The prince was in despair.