They’re the Same Old Stories--and the Children Still Love to Hear Them

Kashka Warden, 35, lives in a fairy tale world, sometimes playing Little Bo Peep. Or Mother Goose. Or Chicken Little, the one who ran about crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.”

Actually, Warden is a professional storyteller who performs at La Habra Children’s Museum and wishes moms and dads would make a habit of telling the time-honored stories or reading to their children or having their children read to them.

“Literature in any form teaches people how to think and see the excitement of words,” she said.

Unlike her own home in Lakewood, where she reads and tells stories to two young sons every night, “there’s not much going on in homes because so many people watch so much television,” she said.

Even though she videotapes 30-minute storytelling programs, Warden feels television is not nearly as satisfying as a live storyteller.

“It’s important for children to have storytelling done in person,” Warden said. “The goal is to verbalize ideas, acting them out and having the children walk away with those ideas.”

She believes in animating the words “so children can pick up the literature involved in the story.” Young children are open to all ideas, and this is one of the reasons she brings costumes and an assortment of hats in a basket to accent her storytelling.

She will present a Christmas story program at La Habra Children’s Museum on Dec. 5, one of a dozen programs she presents a year.

“Children are very special and deserve to hear good stories,” said Warden, who holds a theater degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and has worked in Shakespearean festivals. “Storytelling awakens the perceptions of children that get dull watching television.”

One of seven children, Warden said her parents never had time for individual reading, “but we had a lot of family time.”

Student coordinators opted for a healthy approach to a French fry eating contest as part of Cal State Fullerton’s Homecoming Week, Oct. 10-17.

The winner will be determined by how many French fries he/she can eat in a specified time.

“We didn’t want anyone to get sick,” explained Lisa A. Foley, special events director, who noted that her committee felt a contest on how many French fries a person could eat might be detrimental to the health of contestants.

Under the rules, each contestant will get a one-pound bag of French fries and the first one finished wins. She doesn’t expect the contest to last more than five minutes.

Why French fries? “They’re easy to transport and most people like them,” said Foley, who noted that goldfish swallowing was considered but ruled out.

Fullerton nursery school teacher Helen Kaufmann said one of her 3- to 5-year-old students had an easy explanation for the earthquake after he put his ear to the floor during the temblor.

“Dinosaurs are under the building,” he told Kaufmann.

Acknowledgments--Despite brain damage and becoming a quadriplegic following a car accident, Brian Linen, 14, of Santa Ana won honors from the Boy Scouts of America for attaining Eagle rating, the highest rank in scouting. He was also named an official representative of Scouting for the Handicapped.