What an odyssey
Column by Krysti Mayers
Columns, letters: freepress2@ntelos.net
She obviously knew him. He was 14 years old, standing next to his dad, putting the grocery bags in the cart.
“Have you read The Iliad yet?” He looked at her with confused eyes and shook his head, No.
“You know, about the wooden horse, the Trojan War?” She kept baiting him, hoping that he would have some sort of revelation of Homer’s classic. However, still, he had no idea what she was talking about. Yet, during this exchange, my 8-year-old was ready to explode. He kept looking at me with huge eyes and whispered, “Mommy, we know that story!” I have to say, I was a bit proud of him at that moment. He knew about Homer and his classic writings of The Iliad and The Odyssey, but only because his father is a scholar of ancient languages and writings. My children are growing up in a home filled with Egyptian hieroglyphs, reciting Hebrew prayers and learning the Greek alphabet, all because of their dad.
I, on the other hand, am shamelessly addicted to the Twilight series. That’s OK, because I love a good story no matter how ancient or classic it is.
Story Time at the library started eight years ago, bouncing my baby boy on my knee to nursery rhymes. Showing my children the ancient practice of telling stories has been inspiring.
Besides our amazing libraries, the Waynesboro Heritage Museum offers storytellers once a month. My children go, spellbound by Ian Henry, Sophia Cliffe and Bonnie Weber who tells a story of “Big Hairy Toe Soup” that my children re-tell at the dinner table over and over again. And it was with great excitement to hear of a visit from Jim Weiss.
Jim Weiss is known throughout the homeschooling community as one of the greatest storytellers around. His company, Greathall Productions, is based out of Charlottesville. His voice lulls my children to a hypnotic state as they listen to his CDs and hear the stories of Perseus and Medusa, The Three Musketeers and Julius Caesar.
I was beside myself, waiting to see this man in person, a great lover of the classics. His one night in Waynesboro filled the room with children waiting to see the face behind the voice on their CD players. Jim Weiss was not a disappointment. His storytelling captivated everyone, his gestures and expressions, like watching Homer himself.
All great works of literature, even Twilight, come from these ancient stories of love, forbidden love, redemption and revenge. It is why it is so important that our children have these stories as their foundation. However, watching Jim Weiss share his love of the classics to these children made me wonder about the future. In a 100 years from now, would the writings of the 21st century stand strong next to Shakespeare? I decided to ask Jim Weiss, after the show, what he thought of our children’s writings today and could they be considered the classics? Certainly, books such as Harry Potter, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Redwall, Ulysses Moore, could stand the test of time. Jim Weiss certainly agreed. Maybe one day, in the year 2209, there will be a great storyteller, describing the saga of a boy wizard and a teenage vampire. Why not?
For more information on Greathall Productions and their amazing CD classics, go to www.greathall.com/storytelling.html.
