The Storyteller by Evan Turk

Title: The Storyteller
Author/Illustrator: Evan Turk
Major Awards: ALA Notable Children's Books; Aesop Accolade; Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award (NY); Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature Best Multicultural Books List; Chicago Public Library's Best of the best; Children's Africana Book Award; Texas Bluebonnet nominee: 2017-2018
Genre: Fantasy Fiction
Age: 4-8

This book is about a boy whose whole village has gone without water. This book includes a story within a story. The little boy is given a brass cup by a water-seller and he said if you find water you can drink, drink it and share with others. On his journey home, the boy met an old man, who was sitting at a fountain that didn't have any water, the old man told him to sit and his thirst would be quenched. The old man began with a story about how not too long ago there was a terrible drought in the village, like the one happening to them right now. One family had always had enough water, and shared with anyone who asked. One of their neighbors became suspicious of them and sneaked her daughter into their house to learn their secret, she met a blind woman, and pretended to be her granddaughter, and asked why they always had water. The blind woman told her it was because of the blue bird that lived in their courtyard, and that for thousands of years it flew and found them water, and when the little girl asked where the bird came from, the blind woman told her it was a story for another day. As the old man uttered the words, the boy saw his brass cup was full of cool water. He asked about the bird as well, and the old man told him to come back tomorrow to hear the rest of the story.While the boy was listening to his story in the Sahara, the wind became an enormous sandstorm. The next day the boy went back to the old man, who was a storyteller, and he continued the tale. The little girl had snuck in and asked about the bird, and the blind woman told her it was many generations before, when one of her great-great grandmother's was given a spindle and wove it into something for the people to hope for. And with the end of that the boy's cup was full again and he had to come back the next day to find out what happened. Again, the sandstorm grew only now it blocked out the sun.
The next day the boy came back to hear the rest of the story and so the storyteller began. The weaver was struggling with where to begin, and was told she must first find hope for herself before she could weave anything for anyone else. The old lady told her what she did when she was to be married and her journey with the yarn, and how she used it to build a new life for herself. When she used the colors, the blue spindle seemed to never run out. Once she heard all of the story, the little girl went and told her mother who hatched a plan to steal the bird. When the mother tried to steal the bird she was in awe of its glorious presence and the family forgave her for trying to steal it, and no one ever tried to steal the bird again. When the storyteller finished the story the and the boy's cup overflowed with water and once he finished sipping he poured the rest into the fountain. At this time the sandstorm had reached the gate to the city and was going to destroy it since they had no fountains. The boy and the storyteller told the sandstorm the story he just heard to keep it from destroying the city. As the boy was telling the story more and more people came with their brass cups, and noticed the same filling of water like the boy did. The crowds all poured their cups into the fountains and when the djinn, the sandstorm, tried to destroy the city he couldn't because he was overpowered. It ends with the storyteller saying that was the story of how a boy saved Morocco from the desert, and a little girl asked what happened and the storyteller told her, that it was a story for another day.

This book is really great and interesting, not only because it has a story within a story, but it comes full circle. When the little girl asked the storyteller what happened, just like the boy who asked his storyteller what happened. We can infer that the current storyteller is the little boy and that he is grown up, but we could leave that to the student's imagination. I would use this book as a read aloud and challenge my students to think about any stories they may have heard from, their parents or grandparents. this book circles back in that in the beginning of the formation of the kingdom of Morocco, storytellers were a key piece in civilization, but as the population grew storytellers began to be forgotten about, until this one little boy meets a storyteller and later becomes one himself. This book would be great for students in Preschool-3rd grade. I feel this book shows the importance of having stories and imagination to go along with it.