Telling Tales

Women from different generations gather to prepare each other for important life changing moments, telling stories as they work. A new bride is told a tale about triumphant love; a young girl leaving home for the first time listens to a story about a resourceful young heroine and a nursing mother is treated to a lively retelling of a well known naming tale. Price weaves the stories together with great skill. Each event is marked by three tales told in distinctive voices of different storytellers offering their personal 'narratives for life'. Telling Tales is more than a collection of stories, it emphasises the importance of the telling'; the story's existence is inextricably interwoven with the life of the teller. An affirming, celebratory book of traditional storytelling which avoids rigid gender stereotyping of either men or women. I for one have already bought copies of Telling Tales to give to friends.