Hans Christian Andersen
Central Park Storytelling
1999 Schedule
![[Hans Christian Andersen, by Georg Lober]](pics/749-0059.jpg)
The countdown is on to Saturday, June 5, at the Statue of Hans Christian Andersen in New York’s Central Park...
On that day, and in that place (72nd Street & Fifth Avenue entrance, BTW), Diane Wolkstein will officially open the Central Park story season.
That season’s schedule has been finalized, and here it is (as always, subject to unannounced changes)...
The stories start at 11:00 a.m. Eastern each Saturday from June 5th to September 25th.
- 5
- Diane Wolkstein - The Glass Mountain (from her new picture book, street date: June 1st)
- 12
- Diane Wolkstein - “Psyche and Eros” (Apellius)
- 19
- Joan Bodger - “How the Heather Looks” (original)
- Diane Wolkstein - “Mr. Toad” (Beatrix Potter)
- 26
- Diane Wolkstein - Bouki dances the Kokioko (and other folktales from Haiti as adapted by Diane)
- 3
- Diane Wolkstein - “The Most Incredible Thing of All”
- [then the guest tellers make their entrance....]
- 10
- Laura Bobrow - “The Swineherd”
- Carol Lewis - “Thumbelina”
- 17
- Billie Ballou - “It’s Perfectly True!”
- Tom Weakley - “The Man who Clung to Earth” (Vermont)
- 24
- Robin Moore - “Caribou Man” (from the Inuit)
- 31
- Bob Barton & Kaye Lindauer - “Buying a Dream” (Japan)
- - “The Red Shoes”
- 7
- Jeanne Donato - “Mother Elderberry”
- Rita Auerbach - “The Wild Swans”
- 14
- Carol Birch - “Peter Kagan and the Wind”(Gordon Bok)
- 21
- Katie Green - “Little Ida’s Flowers”
- David Elyha - “The Tinderbox”
- 28
- Regina Ress - “Peter Rabbit” (Beatrix Potter)
- 4
- Julie DellaTorre - “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
- Ken Setterington - “Big Claus and Little Claus”
- 11
- Diane Wolkstein and Shirley Keller - The Duckling’s Party (aka. Piddock Day)
- - “The Ugly Duckling”
- - “Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep”(Eleanor Farjeon)
- (Skipping Contest follows!)
- 18
- Melissa Heckler - “The Black Bull of Norway”(Scotland)
- Ron Soplya - “The Hairy Man” (the Brothers Grimm)
- 25
- Laura Simms - “The Fish Fairy” (Turkey)
Stories are by Hans Christian Andersen except as noted. Stories, as always, will be told come light rain or shine. Parents should be prepared to sit with their kids (and keep them off the Statue once the stories begin). Everything will be safe for children 5 years and up. For more information, contact: Philip David Morgan <pmorgan@suffolk.lib.ny.us>
To experience some of the enjoyment in the Central Park Storytelling, listen to Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park, an audio cassette recording of Diane Wolkstein issued in 1981 by Weston Woods. Phillip David Morgan writes about this cassette:
It has now been more than four decades since the Statue of Hans Christian Andersen was unveiled in New York City’s Central Park. There have been many tellers entertaining the old and the young alike every summer since 1956...but I believe Diane Wolkstein - who made her début in 1966 - will be the most fondly remembered. Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park is the storyteller’s first album (made in 1982), and it should serve as the best introduction to anyone hearing her or Andersen’s stories for the first time. Aided by musicians Shirley Keller, Janet Stuart, and Rachel Zucker (the storyteller’s daughter), Diane Wolkstein’s voice carries the listener through six of the Danish master’s tales - not just familiar ones such as “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes” but also such finds as “The Goblin and the Grocer” and the uproarious “Hans Clodhopper.” I love it when a great story is told well, and Wolkstein - who was named “the official storyteller” of New York City in the late 1960’s - is that city’s greatest treasure.
In addition to four stories mentioned by Phillip David Morgan, the cassette includes the immortal “The Nightingale” and the short and lovely “Dance, Dance Dolly Mine”
