BOOKS

The Boo Baby Girl
Meets the Ghost of Mable's Gable

Told by Jim May
Illustrated by Shawn Finley
32 pages, illustrated in full color
$14.95
ISBN 1-878925-03-2

Two swaggering eighth-grade boys set out to take the gold from the haunted house called Mable's Gable. But when they meet the ghost, they turn Thailand run. The Boo Baby Girl, a tough little toddler, hears about the house and the gold and sets out to try her luck. She outwits the ghost and puts the two blustering adolescents to shame.

Storyteller Jim May created the inimitable Boo Baby and the boastful but spineless eighth-grade boys and based their adventures on an authentic children's folktale collected by folklorists from interviews with children.For many years Jim May has been telling this story to children's audiences with spectacular results. Kids leave the room waddling like the Boo Baby Girl and repeating the ghost's eerie speeches.

Jim May's characterizations, humor, and storytelling skill combine with Shawn Finley's ghostly interiors, intriguing detail, and graphic style,to make this a book for story lovers of all ages.

The Farm on Nippersink Creek
Stories from a Midwestern Childhood

by Jim May
$18.85
ISBN 0-87483-339-6

In the days between Truman and JFK, growing up in the rural Midwest was simple matter: Dads marched in the Memorial Day parade and taught their sons to care for the livestock and the land. Converse All-Stars were seen only on the basketball court. The family farm was the dominant industry.

To the youth of that place and time, fascinated as they were with the mysteries of the adults world, certain symbols took on large,unspeakable meanings: yesterday's pet calf, now a frozen caricature, hoisted onto a truck bed; the huge bass at the fish hatchery, accorded a pond of his own;the shanty with the old rusty bell that had never been rung. Even Nippersink Creek, at the foot of a favorite sledding hill, waited to swallow child,sled, and granny-knit mittens.

Jim May has told stories of such a childhood for two decades, first as a teacher and college counselor and now as a professional storyteller. Here he recaptures the essence of rural life in stories from his hometown of Spring Grove, Illinois, that feature horse-trading father, his startlingly frank (and wise) mother, his training at St. Peter's Catholic Church and brief ambition to become Most Valuable Alter Boy, and the political workings of a small town far removed from the machinations of Washington, D.C.

These stories, and the characters in them, are firmly grounded in the Midwestern landscape, and like Jim May's family, they span four generations of living along the Nippersink Creek.

 CDs

Jim May Live at the National Storytelling Festival

Includes Horse Snot, Horse Swap, Unmotivated Mule, Mule Raffle, Republican Raffle, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Mules, Fish & Pumpkins, Nightcrawlers, The Specialist, and A Bell for Shorty.

$15.00

My Sister Diane

...a story of hope and transformation.
Recorded live at Sharing The Fire, March 2002

$10.00

VIDEOCASSETTE

Tell a Story - Make a Friend

Easy-to-tell stories for young children and storytellers of all ages. English, Spanish, ASL. Includes:

• Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle
• Dark, Dark Night
• Una Noche Obsura
• Cecil
• The Boo Baby Boy
• The Boo Baby Girl

$25.00

AUDIOCASSETTES

Heroes, Heroines and Boo Babies
Stories for Young People

$10.00

Boo Babies; Three Little Pigs; Ina and the Eel; Lazy Jack

The Farm on Nippersink Creek

$18.00

Introduction; Horse Snot; Agnes; Spring Grove; A Bell for Shorty; Terror in the Barnyard; All Souls Day; Mourning Dove; John Henry; Christmas Even the Barn

Horse Sense
Stories of Horse Traders, Privy-Builders and Farm Folk

$10.00

Pig Tales; Republican Picnic; The Specialist; Horse Snot; Horse Play; Amazing Grace Trilogy; A Bell for Shorty

Purple Bogies and Other Ghost Tales

$10.00

Tailypo; Conjure Wives; The Spectral Duck; Soldier Jack Meets The Purple Bogies

Grandpa's Barn and Other Stories

$10.00

Too Much Bull; Father Fritz; Night Crawlers; Trouble in the Grotto; Grandpa's Barn; Poems