The Dark Side of Children and their Literature...

This month over on 4ManchesterWomen.com I have been reviewing Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver.

Yes I read kid's books and call it work... This month death, the sticky end to origami rabbits and a questionable comparison to Harry Potter, take a read now, by clicking here...

Huffanpuff the Grumpy Old Elephant

I originally posted this short children's story a couple of months back, but yesterday I was performing at a community festival in Whalle Range as Stephie Teacup and I thought it might be nice to post again!  Eventually I will get round to typing up a few more of my original pieces! Enjoy x

Huffanpuff the grumpy old elephant hadn't always been grumpy or old or even called Huffanpuff. But it had been such a long time since he had smiled or trumpeted that none of the other elephants could remember his real name.

Huffanpuff used to be the greatest trumpeter in the Elephant trunk band. You see all Elephants turn their trunks into an instrument.  Some have  long trunks that they can stretch into a trombone.  Others have curly trunks perfect for playing the jazz like a saxophone.  Others like Huffanpuff had trumpet trunks, loud and proud and fantastically jolly, and Huffanpuff had once been the loudest, proudest most fantastically jolly trumpeter in the whole band, not that anyone could remember!

Nowadays, Huffanpuff couldn't find anything to be loud or proud or even slightly jolly about, and because of this, he couldn't find a single squeaky note i his trumpet trunk!  Now he was quiet and lonely and walked around mumbling-and-a-grumbling, huffing-and-a-puffing, which is why everyone called him Huffanpuff, even Huffanpuff couldn't remember his own name which made him huff and puff even more!

The other elephants would avoid him as they worried they would catch his misery bug, and they would tell all the elephant calves to leave old Huffanpuff alone.  Which is a shame because Huffanpuff wasn't some one to be scared of, he was just fed up of being alone.

Huffanpuff missed his family, who had all grown up and moved on. And with no family around it is sometimes hard to remember where you came from, and easy to forget who you are. Huffanpuff had taught all his family everything he knew about being a trumpeter, but when they left, the music left too, and everyone soon forgot about the loudest, proudest, fantastically, jolly trumpet trunk.

Then one day Huffanpuff was mumbling-and-a-grumbling along, minding his own business, when he came across a young elephant practicing his trunk. Louis had no idea what instrument his trunk was, which made it difficult to play.  He'd tried getting it to curl like a saxophone, and stretching it out like a trombone, but all that ever came out was a noise like some one blowing raspberries! He'd take a deep breath, puff up his cheeks, squeeze his eyes together and...nothing!

Huffanpuff watched Louis do this over and over again.

Then he quietly said 'That's no way to play the trumpet'

Louis looked up, his cheeks pink, he hadn't realised he had an audience.

'Did you say... trumpet?' Louis had always longed for a trumpet trunk but would never have thought in a million elephant ears, that he had one. Trumpet trunks are loud and proud and fantastically jolly, Louis' trunk was squeaky, shy and a bit embarrassing to watch.

'Oh without a doubt, that's a trumpet you've got there, you're just playing it all wrong!' mumbled, Huffanpuff, a little croakily, he hadn't said a sentence as long as that in years!

Oh I wish I could play, I practice everyday. I love the trumpet, especially the way the great Humphrey used to play it, I have ALL of his records...' Louis was so excited he hadn't even noticed that this old elephant he babbling away to was Huffanpuff.

'The great Humphrey?' Huffanpuff slowly interrupted.

'Oh yes, you must have heard of Humphrey? He was the greatest!' But Louis' excitement soon gave way to defeat when he remembered his own trunk 'I'll never be able to play like him!'

'Well that's cos you're doing it all wrong' Huffanpuff was beginning to find his voice again, and managed to sound quite matter of fact about the subject. 'You don't crunch up your face like that, you do it like this!' Without thinking, or mummbling-or-a-grumbling, Huffanpuff stood up tall and for the first time in as long as anyone could remember, let out a grand old trumpeting tune, and then sneezed from all the dust, his previously forgotten trunk had gathered over the years.

Louis' mouth fell to the floor. It couldn't be, could it?

'Well don't just stand there! You try!' that time Huffanpuff almost sounded jolly!

Louis shut his mouth, stood up and to to copy exactly what Huffanpuff had just done, but he scrunched up his trunk and his big elephant ears flopped over his eyes, still it was a big improvement, which was lucky as a few other elephants from the band had begun to gather.

'This time,' Huffanpuff kindly offered 'keep your ears back.'

Once again, Louis stood up right, stuck out his trunk and this time tucked back his ears and this time let out a wonderfully loud, proud and jolly trumpet tune!

It would be difficult to say who was more chuffed with this! Louis or Huffanpuff!

'That's it boy! Soon you'll be a grand trumpeter ' and with that Huffanpuff played the loudest, proudest and most fantastically jolly trumpet tune the elephants had heard in a very long time! As he played the whole elephant band came to watch , and as he came to the end they all stomped a round of applause, but none were so excited as Louis! Who wasn't just stomping but jumping up and down, and yelping ...

'I knew it! I KNEW it! It's him, you're Humphrey the great!'

The stomping slowly came to a stop as each elephant heard Louis' yelp, and right in front of their eyes Huffanpuff the grumpy old elephant transformed, as one by one, they all remembered his real name. Humphrey the Great Elephant Trumpeter.

Insert more imaginative title here

So this is the first draft of a blog I am working on for another site, this is the more personal opinion version! Enjoy... 

Sat staring at a blank computer screen, at a desk in an office, it is hard to believe that it’s my imagination that got me here.  But then I don’t work in your normal day to day office and I don’t have a normal job.

In fact my job is almost entirely make believe.

I should explain, I’m a performer, a story teller, a writer and generally creative. With this in mind then you would assume that I am one of those people who just loves to post an inspiring quote on my Facebook wall, often super imposed over a beautiful sunset. Well I’m not. In fact most of the time I would argue that Facebook is the last place you should be looking for inspiration but when my mind drew a blank, that’s where I headed, and there was Einstein staring back at me telling me:

Einstein, he like totally knew his stuff yeah?

‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to understand.’

And, who am I to disagree with a genius?

As a story teller I obviously work with children a lot. They have even bigger imaginations than me most of the time, but the biggest challenge I often face is getting them to release it! At a children’s festival last year I asked a little girl, if she could live in the world of make believe what would she do?

Her answer?

Sit and watch TV all day and never have to turn her iPod off at bed time. My heart broke a little. I’m not about to start a rant about the youth of today, because this little girl still had her imagination. In fact she used it regularly to make sure she didn’t have to turn her iPod off at bed time in the real world either.

‘But Mum, I’m listening to the bible!’

Nor, am I advocating the use of the imagination to tell great big whopping fibs either.

I do think though that we forget the importance of something as simple as storytelling.

To paraphrase another inspirational quote:  Behind every great person there is a great story, a story that was probably inspired by another great story.

Stories and the imagination are everywhere. They are what drive us to explore and find out, it’s what made Colombo set off sailing and what keeps astronauts sane on the space station.  Stories tell us what happened in the past and how to behave in the future, they help us understand other cultures, they introduce us to love, life and death, and most of all they make us, us.

One can only dream, that one day my something I say
will be as inspirational as this sunset.

Now I don’t have a whole bunch of statistics to back up the importance of storytelling, of which I am sure there are many, but then I’m not in the business of facts. I’m in the business of make believe and in my eyes, stories are important for children and big kids alike, because they are what makes this very real world make sense.

But I don’t think that’s catchy enough to print over a picture of a sunset.

Stephanie Claire runs Teacup Theatre and Storytelling Workshops at Chorlton’s Jellyfish Rooms Sunday 12-2pm, find out more at www.teacuptheatre.com

New Storytelling Workshops!

I am very excited, a year after Teacup Theatre began to have a chance to start concentrating on my children's storytelling again!

Something about the weather turning bright again and hosting workshops is just a little blissful! So before I get all twee on you and crack out the home made lemonade here is the info you need!

Storytelling Workshops at the 

Jellyfish Rooms Chorlton

Sundays 12-2pm 

£5 per child, bring your grown-ups for free!



Join Stephie Teacup for an afternoon of craft, drama games, big stories and bigger imaginations!



Find out what is in the library of boxes, how Molly became a rule breaker, and why Daniel is the worst pirate in Kufanya Amini, help create a magical pop-up garden and find the tiny hippo hiding under your bed!