––Jeanine Passini-Beekman, Houston Storyfest

Favorites

"It all began early one morning in Spider Town..."

"It's not right to lose touch with the Past, you lose sight of the Future..."

Original Stories

"Sterling was an upright little salt-shaker who stood at the center of the dinner table, beside the Old Peppermill..."

"Snakes! Hit 'em with a broom! Yuck!" And the snakes said "Waaaa! They don't like usssss. Why??"

"I looked in the tall grass and found a little caterpillar!"

"Dad said it was an indian legend, but we knew he was making it up."

Rhymes

"It always seems to happen when I'm lying in my bed, I dream that I am far away and somewhere else instead..."

"Here is the child, meek and mild, who planted a seed one day..."

Original Tellings of Traditional Stories

"Snowy White and Rosy Red, will you beat uyour lover dead?"

"The day her mother died, her father said 'Your mother was too weak and too naive. This world is not a place for gentle souls..."

Myth

"Come all you who dwell in darkness, come into the shining city..."

"Our story begins on a storm-tossed sea..."

"There was once a man among the first people who had cows marked black and white like day and night..."

Memoir

"In the dry season the Everglades burn. But it is no mere conflagration of leaf and limb, the very earth burns."

"Everyone was getting ready for the storm except for me. I was getting ready for adventure on wind and wheels."

"It was 1964 and I knew nothing of the events raging around me..."

"I wanted to do that. To take on the impression of my surroundings and disappear."