By: John Weaver

The Menlo Park Library is planning a monthlong celebration of the oral tradition, with a Storytelling Festival featuring 7 celebrated professional tellers, over the course of 7 events, at the 2 library locations. Every Monday evening at 7 this November, a teller who is new to the library will perform. On selected afternoons, a favorite returning storyteller will share some tales. The performances are aimed toward adults, as well as children in elementary school and above. Listeners can delight to Asian folktales with Megumi, Native stories of Shape Shifters and Mischief-Makers with Alicia Retes and Latin American tales with Olga Loya . More tales from around the world will be shared by Muriel Johnson, tandem tellers Linda Kennedy and Joan McCammon, AKA “The Do-Tell Duo,” and the library’s own resident storyteller, John Weaver. November’s events mark the library’s second Annual Storytelling Festival. According to the National Storytelling Network, "storytelling is the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination. In storytelling, the listener imagines the story."