Once upon a time, small children everywhere were helped along on their quest to become better readers by a fortnightly magazine called Storyteller! Contained within it's pages were classic children's tales like Gobbolino The Witch's Cat & The Wizard Of Oz, folk tales like Sinbad & Anansi The Spiderman and exclusive tales written specially for the magazine....
Every issue also came with a cassette tape, on on this tape the stories came to life as they were read by actors and celebrities that were familiar to any child watching British children's television, like Brian Blessed, Derek Griffiths, Liza Goddard & Bernard Cribbins to name but a few...
Children could look at the pictures and read along as they listened, learning what the words looked and sounded like...and they were informed to turn the pages of the magazine when they heard the Storyteller, an odd pixie-type fella, ring his bell...
It ran from 1982 until 1985, and as a five-year-old child myself in 1982, I was one of those little kids that the magazine helped hone the reading skills of! I managed to find a whole load of the old cassette tapes in a charity shop a few years back, but sadly the magazines and my own cassettes were lost in a move may years ago....
But thank heavens for the internet, where most things can be found if you know where to look...and not only the pictures and sound, but also in the form of videos on Youtube! Which brings us to today, and the story of how Gobbolino, the Witch's cat, had himself a Christmas adventure that handily allowed me to tenuously link Storyteller to Creepmas and come up with this post!
So here's the story as it appeared in the Christmas issue of Storyteller 2, along with the video so you can read along with your own little kittens if you have such things!
(And as always, click to go big!)
So sweet. I love the story, and that narrator is so great! Her voice is perfect for this tale. Loved it, thanks for positing it.
ReplyDelete