"Storytelling came first, before written language. It takes away that book a physical barrier, and gets people looking eye to eye," Maichack said.

Don't get her wrong; Maichack is a former children's librarian and has nothing against books. But she also enjoys storytelling as another form of expression.

It wasn't until 1989 that Maichack found her niche in storytelling, she said.

"Ages ago, I was an English major, but I quickly became mystified about the world of work," Maichack said with a laugh.

After a stint in the insurance business Maichack became a librarian and learned, through a co-worker, about the world of storytelling. She now does more than 250 programs a year throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Another story was about a princess, a prince and a fire-breathing dragon. The children got involved in play-acting this one, but the story didn't have a conventional ending.

In this one, the princess, played by 5-year-old Alyshia Mitchell, saved her prince from the dragon. But afterward, all the prince had to say was that her hair looked terrible.

"You are a bum!" Alyshia said at Maichack's urging.

"And the prince and princess didn't get married after all," Maichack said with a shrug.

Twelve-year-old Rachel Battista said she liked the program because she thinks hearing a story makes it more interesting than reading it.

"lt gets you to think about it more," she said.

NEW BRITAIN -- Want to see a person who can talk like a turtle, imitate a bulldog or fly like an eagle?

Take a look at Mary Jo Maichack, a minstrel and professional storyteller from Holyoke, Mass.

"Telling a story can be very powerful. It's the most human thing in the world to do," Maichack said.

Maichack proved her point by holding about 75 children rapt for more than an hour Saturday at the New Britain Public Library. Spinning tales from all over the world, Maichack capped a weeklong celebration of National Children's BookWeek. One favorite was a story from Haiti, about a talkative turtle and a pigeon.

One day, the story went, all the pigeons in Haiti decided to travel to a place where there were big, rocky cliffs: New York City. But one pigeon couldn't stand to leave behind his best buddy, a turtle. So the two devised a plan in which the turtle would hold on to a stick with his mouth and then be towed by the pigeon all the way to the Big Apple.

"Well, way down below there was this old spider who said, 'Hey, is that a turtle way up there?'" said Maichack, crouching down and scowling the way a spider might. "'He won't make it, he can't keep his mouth shut that long.'"

Maichack straightened up, now pretending to be the offended turtle.

"Well, the turtle heard that and he said, 'Yes I cannnnnnn!'" Maichack said as she pretended to fall out of the sky.

Maichack said the age-old tradition of storytelling is being revived in the United States.