An Interview with Lise Lunge-Larsen

My cooperating teacher and I have been using the book Gifts from the Gods: Ancient Words and Wisdom from Greek and Roman Mythology in our classroom to support the teaching of Greek and Latin roots. I happened upon it in the bookstore a few weeks ago and discovered this magnificent folklorist and storyteller. Lise has written many folklore re-tellings and keeps a very informative blog. Her website also contains a wealth of information for teachers and story lovers alike. Click here to read a blog post she wrote containing tips for telling stories in your classroom. Lise has also posted a series of articles that essentially serve as a mini-course on folklore--valuable for any teacher. Since I am someone who believes almost anything can be taught using stories, I had to contact this woman. She was gracious enough to drop by for an interview. Lise, welcome to The River!

Lori: Your most recent book, Gifts from the Gods, has been an excellent teaching tool in our classroom. We are studying Greek and Latin roots! How did the idea for this uniquely formatted picture book about word origins develop?         


Lise: I got this idea many decades ago when I was a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Minnesota. I was writing my Master's Thesis on using storytelling to teach English as A Second Language and working as a storyteller round and about the Twin Cities. I also had the chance to teach a storytelling class at Hamline University and as part of that class I included the storytelling of myths. As I was working on this, I began to notice how many words in English, from the names of cars (Saturn, Mercury) to cleaning products (Ajax), to shoes (Nike) came from Greek mythology. I got pretty excited and actually worked up lesson plans for teachers to have their students go on scavenger hunts in the grocery stores and elsewhere finding references to Greek mythology. This was in the early 80's and I kept telling teachers this was a great idea and somebody ought to write a book. Nobody ever did, so finally I decided I had better do it. As I suspected, it was a ton of work. I jokingly call Gifts from the Gods my dissertation!!!


Lori: Oh man, I want those lesson plans! You grew up literally surrounded by books which must have influenced your interest in stories. Did you also love to write stories as a child? How did the writer in you develop?


Lise: Being surrounded by books and a family of readers, I always loved to read. However, I never thought that I would become a writer. That seemed like something only a few amazing individuals could do, like Henrik Ibsen or Shakespeare. It seemed unattainable so I never even considered it growing up. That didn't stop me from writing of course. I just never considered it as a possible career. But I wrote for the school newspapers,I wrote skits to perform at school and in my drama club and so on. But I never took it seriously. It was for fun.


Lori: Your troll story retellings, collected in, The Troll With no Heart in His Body, are said to retain the power of the originals without shying away from their sometimes violent nature. I love your thoughtful introduction about why children need these stories and the importance of folktales. Regarding the debate surrounding “sanitization” of folklore, why is it important to you that children are not necessarily “protected” from the violence in some of these stories? What important purpose does this treatment serve? 

Lise: Well, it's because violence is a fact of life and in the stories it is presented in a metaphorical language that makes it tolerable for children. One thing I have learned as a storyteller is that you do have to be age appropriate with children. I would never have more violence than is found in Billy Goats Gruff for the younger children, but for the older ones, there can be more. But the thing is, children can handle the scary parts when it is part of the solution to a problem and once they hear that solution they realize they too could have figured it out. That's huge for them. When I tell Butterball, they love listening and I can hear them whisper as they try to figure out how Butterball is going to get out of being eaten. When they recognize that they had figured out at least part of the solution, all fear melts away and they have this enormous sense of competence. This is such a huge topic and I could go on for a very long time. I wrote a bunch of blog posts related this. Here are the links: http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/blog/sss/?tag=the-witch-must-die

http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/blog/sss/?tag=childrens-critical-thinking-skills

Lori: What else, other than the presence of trolls, is most distinctive about the flavor of Scandinavian tales?

Lise: Many things set Norwegian folktales apart. The language is very direct and there is a certain kind of folksy humor that pokes fun at everyone in a position of power. The king is usually not very clever, the parson is not to be trusted, the academic is totally lacking in common sense and so on. This is because at the time when the tales were written down, Norway had been a Danish colony for 400 years and every person in power was Danish or Danish educated, so naturally the folktales liked to poke fun of them. The sense of the dramatic landscape is also evident in the strong contrasts found in the stories - huge craggy mountains and deep fjords, endless summer nights contrasted with near constant darkness in winter. That contrast is clearly seen in the contrast between good and evil, which in the tales are nearly always the contrast between humans and trolls. 

Lori: While folktales are retold for every age, in novels and picture books alike, why do you think the same few stories get retold again and again? Can you give us a few titles of overlooked-but-spectacular tales we should give attention to?

Lise: I guess the same stories get told over and over again because they resonate so deeply with us and parents want to make sure their children have the same profound experience as they had when they read the story. In a way it is nice, because it is an experience that's shared over time and space. A child can talk to a great grandparent about Cinderella and know they're talking about the same thing. It's not certain that great grandparent has read "The Hunger Games" or "Captain Underpants." So it becomes a shared language with shared metaphors ("If the shoe fits" for example) and that is always a good thing to have. At the same time there are so many great folktales that almost no children get to read or hear. The troll stories in my book are largely unknown to children, with the exception of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Every culture has a folktale that they consider the absolute classic folktale of their country such as Momotaro, the Little One Inch Boy from Japan, or stories about Baba Yaga and Vassilia the beautiful from Russia. I don't think most children read 1001 Arabian Nights anymore, do they? Yet the stories included about Sinbad the sailor and Aladdin are classics. Boy there are too many great folktales that remain largely forgotten to know where to start. That's why I'm writing my blog.

Lori: I will be referencing your blog often. Can you talk about what you’re working on? What stories are you finding most important to you right now?

Lise: I'm working on a couple of different projects right now, but I have no idea if they'll go anywhere. I guess I'm not supposed to talk about it, but at least one them is about words and language. If you read my blog posts during January (an etymological abc!!!) you'll get an idea.

Lori: As a lover of words I will be watching for that at my bookstore for sure. It would be great to feature one a day in the classroom. What other genres do you enjoy reading for pleasure? Favorite authors?

Lise: I love to read just about anything. I'm a big mystery fan and at the moment I'm into what they have dubbed Nordic Noir. Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø is a favorite. I also love historical fiction and I just read "Shogun" for the first time. Great novel. Right now I'm in the middle of Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War."

Lori: Teachers must have data driven justification for everything we do. What research supports storytelling as a “best practice” in the elementary classroom? (As someone who is getting ready to interview for teaching jobs, I am very interested in presenting this. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence of the power of stories, but administrators also need to see the data!)

Lise: I think I covered some of that in that January course. There are some great books, but I actually am not familiar with any hard data. Try writers and scholars like Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar. Both are passionate about folklore and as academics, full of data!

Lori: I will definitely be looking them up. Do you ever come to Michigan?

Lise: You bet!!

Lori: I will be passing your name on to the people who organize our school visits. Now for the really important questions. Since we are both Dancing with the Stars fans, tell me, which dancing couple are you rooting for?

Lise: Oh my gosh. They are so good. I love many of them. I know I'm rooting for Katherine Jenkins and also Maria Menounos.

Lori: I know! There are a lot of great dancers this time. Now for the requisite culinary question: Assuming you enjoy chocolate, does your preference lean toward milk or dark?

Lise: I love dark chocolate! 

Lori: And what is a favorite dessert from your childhood?

Lise: A favorite childhood dessert/treat is Norwegian heart shaped waffles with jam. Yum.

Lori: It has been at treat to have you visit my blog. Thanks so much for your thoughtful answers and folkloric wisdom! 

Check out all of Lise's books here.