Sea of knowledge

“The foundation stone was not always visible as it is now.
In fact it remained out of sight for one hundred years from the time it had been laid and blessed.
It only saw daylight on that first morning in 1727 before it was quickly covered over.
But we will come back to the reason for that later.
Jumping ahead to the year 1827.
On the Thursday evening of the 15th February of that year the parish priest’s seventy-nine year-old housekeeper went to bed about 9 o’clock as she usually did.
No sooner had she fallen asleep than she found herself to be in a dream; a most unusual dream.
In the dream she was standing by our school.
And as she was standing there a beautiful snow white Irish wolfhound appeared out of a nearby wood, and he came along by the school wall, and just to the left of the main door.
There he excitedly started digging a hole in the ground with his great paws.
The woman watched and thought to herself that the wolfhound must have buried a bone there at one time and had returned to dig it up.
But the more she watched the more she noticed that he had dug a hole so deep that he was now fully inside it himself, and he was still digging away.
She thought this was wondrous strange indeed for a dog would never bury a bone that deep.
And as she began to move a little closer to see better, didn’t the wolfhound suddenly disappear into thin air.
She thought to herself that she should cover in the hole in case anyone might fall into it.
And as she was down on her knees and about to push in some soil and stones, she noticed at the bottom of the hole a . . .” Sea of knowledge

From Ireland: a mystical and beautiful isle of the north eastern Atlantic Ocean renowned for its mighty storytellers comes the ninth of ten original long stories for children aged 8-12, their parents, grandparents, and their teachers. These are imaginary stories told by an imaginary schoolteacher to imaginary students in an imaginary Irish countryside primary school.

Principal, Declan McGrath is highly respected by parents and greatly loved by his students not alone for the way he admirably teaches them but also for the marvellous lively-paced contemporary narratives he shares with them. In his voice is found a lovely natural rhythm and rhyme that is pure music to the ears of his students.

He has twenty-nine students in his classroom. In 4th class there is Amy, Brian, Ciara, Cormac, Craig, Heather, Laura, Martin, and Patrick; in 5th Anthony, Aoife, Ciaran, David, Gerard, Jennie, Julia, Mary, Natalia, Niamh, Sean, and Thomas, and in 6th Colin, Emily, Finbarr, Hugh, Natasha, Owen, Sophie, and Tara.

He uses storytelling very effectively to refine his awareness of the wellbeing of his students. Occasionally, they will say out things during a storytelling session that they would not say otherwise.

Although the stories have a local Irish setting or bearing they are not parochial; far from it for they aspire to and deal with universal themes and concerns in a way that a reader in any part of the world will be able to relate to and enjoy.

The world is ripe for the fresh voice and personal style found in these richly multi-layered story lines; stories which parents and teachers alike will find most appealing and indeed quite useful for their own storytelling times.

Approximate word count: 8,435

Principal McGrath’s marvellous stories always finish with:
“And that, Students is today’s story.
Thank you; thank you Teacher.
That was a great story.
We will be thinking about it and looking forward to next week’s one.
Me too; me too.”
_____
A print edition containing all ten stories will be coming out in early to mid-November 2016 which will also be available here on Amazon. This would make an ideal Christmas gift.