Clara Brogan patiently outlined her instructions for the second-graders sitting at her feet.
She would clap, Brogan told them, and then the kids would shout, “Kaboom!” During their first attempt, the “kabooms” were enthusiastic but scattered.
The 92-year-old was patient, however. Brogan was a longtime music teacher in the Concord and Merrimack Valley school districts, but in her retirement, she has been a storyteller for young children for 25 years.
“You know, I retired and said, ‘Lord God Almighty, free at last,’ but discovered about halfway through the school year, I missed being with children,” Brogan said. “And decided I would do something to volunteer.”
So she took a class on storytelling at Plymouth State University, and then began visiting a friend’s kindergarten class at Garrison School. In the years since, she has enthralled students at Kimball School, Beaver Meadow Elementary School and Walker School. Now, she visits the second-graders every other Thursday at Christa McAuliffe Elementary School.
This week, the story was about Anansi the spider – a mischievous recurring character in Brogan’s tales.
“Who can remember where Anansi lives?” she asked the children. “Africa!” they called out.
Seated in a rocking chair, Brogan regaled the young listeners with the spider’s tale. On this particular day, Anansi found a magic rock in the woods that would cause his friends to faint. He tricked them one by one, and when they fell unconscious (“Kaboom!”), he stole treats from their homes – oranges from Giraffe, yams from Lion, bananas from Elephant. But he was eventually bested by little Bush Deer, who saw his tricks and helped the other animals retrieve their food.
Like many of Brogan’s stories, this one had a moral.
“Mean tricks don’t always pay off,” she advised.
Brogan learns her stories by heart; when she recites them, her hands, voice and face are expressive. Her favorite – the story of unlikely friends Snake and Frog – is passed down from her grandmother. As the refugee population in Concord schools has grown, she said she sometimes likes to recount stories from their countries of origin.
Brogan especially loves the younger students, she said, in part because the older kids pay more attention to their cell phones and electronic devices than to fables and fairytales.
“Children still have some feeling of magic, and I like to keep that,” Brogan said.
The children aren’t the only ones who are fans of Brogan’s stories. On Wednesday night, the Concord school board presented Brogan with a “Champion for Children” award to honor her decades of service in the district. During her regular Thursday class, retired teacher Jan Smith drove from her home in Alton Bay to hear Brogan’s story about Anansi and hug her friend.
During the eight years she has known Brogan, Smith said her students at Walker School and then at Christa McAuliffe Elementary School would chatter about these stories back in the classroom. They loved the animal characters in particular, she said.
“Clara has a wonderful way of homing in on children’s interests,” Smith said. “She always finds a way for them to be interactive, which is a real art in storytelling.”
Brogan’s son, Paul, said his mother studied music at the Julliard School in New York, and she taught him and countless other children how to play piano growing up. With her aptitude for music and performance, he said he’s not surprised she has found a niche in storytelling.
“When she tells a story to the children, she almost acts it out for them,” Paul Brogan said. “It’s not just reading from a book. It’s bringing a character to life and making sure these children really understand.”
Paul added that the nonagenarian is active in other ways as well. She also volunteers in her church and performs regularly with the Concord Community Music School’s Songweavers. The petite woman recently purchased a small Fiat – with the license plate “G-Clef” in homage to her love of music. Next week, her son has promised to help her buy a computer and teach her how to use it.
“She finds enormous satisfaction in filling her time with things that will make a difference,” Paul Brogan said.
On Thursday morning, the cross-legged audience listened attentively. They giggled at Anansi’s tricks and, on Brogan’s command, dutifully yelled their line.
“You’re such good kaboomers,” Brogan said, beaming at the children. “That’s the best one yet.”
(Megan Doyle can be reached at 369-3321, mdoyle@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @megan_e_doyle.)