Union Cross Students Hear Stories and Songs from Around the World

By Jon Sundell

On Jan. 20, Jon Sundell, who recently retired from Winton-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, presented three concerts of “Stories and Songs Around the World” at Union Cross Elementary School. The programs were given in conjunction with the school’s Multicultural Fair, culminating a project in which each grade studied a different country and continent – including Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Japan, Germany, and Mexico.

The three concerts involved plenty of participation for the younger children, and ample food for thought for the older ones. All of them were enhanced by the use of color slides. In addition, there was an extensive display of crafts Mr. Sundell has collected in over a dozen foreign countries.

As a professional storyteller and multi-instrumentalist folksinger for over 45 years, Mr. Sundell has performed throughout half of the United States and several foreign countries. He brought his talents with him when he joined the Forsyth County Public Library in 1984 and crossed over to the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools as a media coordinator in 2006. 

Since he retired from WS/FCS in July 2016 and returned to freelancing, he has focused on incorporating reading and curriculum into his school programs. To this end he has created multimedia programs, where color slides create background and context for the songs and stories and promote books that served as source materials or open opportunities for expanded reading and study. He calls his new business “Perfect Storm Edutainment,” bringing together the best of both education and entertainment.

A few featured pieces:

The Spanish language song, “La pulga de San Jose,” about buying musical instruments at a flea market, was introduced by slides (some of them taken by Jon on his travels) showing outdoor markets and the musical instruments, as well as the book, De Colores and Other Latin American Folksongs from which Jon learned the song, and its editor, Jose Luis Orozco. The students played along with the song on their air-guitars, clarinets, violins, cellos, and hand drums, as they sang in Spanish. 

After showing photos of beautiful Brazilian butterflies Jon told the bilingual tale of “La Mariposa,” about Señor Perro (dog), Señor Marano (pig), and Ratoncito Perez (mouse) who court the beautiful butterfly (Mariposa) wearing her colorful new dress. He also showed the source book, Cuenta me un story/ Tell Me a Cuento and its editor, as well as books of other variants of the tale, including the award winning Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach by Carmen Agra Deedy.

One of the highlights was the hilarious Irish tale of Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato, taken from a picture book by noted children’s author Tomie DePaola. From this fantastical tale about how the laziest man in Ireland encounters a magic potato seed, Jon segued into a brief slide show of the real Irish potato famine of the 1840’s, depicted in the historical novel, Nory Ryan’s Song, by Patricia Reilly Giff. After showing how the famine brought the migration of 1 million starving people to the United States, Jon led the students in the rousing Irish folk song, “Paddy Works on the Railway.” 

If you are interested in having Jon Sundell perform at your school, you can contact him at Jon Sundell or (336) 724-5907.