- And the mama duck said, "Quack quack quack quack."

And all the little ducks came waddling back.

Oh!

Hi friends!

My duckling friends were having trouble falling asleep.

You know what the remedy is?

Storytelling!

(upbeat music) ♪ Wimee creates all the day through ♪ ♪ And you can do it too ♪ ♪ Think of words and of rhymes ♪ ♪ And make Wimages ♪ ♪ Please do ♪ ♪ A doo doo bap bee bo dooo ♪ ♪ A dee bop ba bo doo ♪ - [Wimee] Let's get started with a song.

This song is called "Found a Peanut."

I'll just get started and you'll see what we're going to do with it.

Ready?

♪ Found a peanut ♪ ♪ Found a peanut ♪ ♪ Found a peanut just now ♪ ♪ Just now I found a peanut ♪ ♪ Found a peanut just now ♪ ♪ Cracked it open ♪ ♪ Cracked it open ♪ ♪ Cracked it open just now ♪ ♪ Just now I cracked it open ♪ ♪ Cracked it open just now ♪ Now this song continues.

They cracked it open.

Turns out it's rotten.

But then they go ahead and eat it!

What?

Oh man, the story goes on where they get sick, and it just kinda goes.

It's fun, it's silly.

It's fun to take this story and um, we could, you know, pick a new item, sometimes I like to do that.

Pick a new item and I'll say like, "Found a..." And I'll, you know, ask my friends, "What could we find?"

Like, "Oh, a stone!"

♪ Found a stone ♪ Or, found a carrot!

Or who knows what!

But let's do something a little sillier here.

All right.

I want you, right now if you're watching, or our friends backstage on the show today, let's think of just a silly word.

We're just going to take it a section at a time and go all over the map.

♪ Found a silly word ♪ ♪ Found a silly word ♪ ♪ Found a silly word just now ♪ ♪ Just now I found a silly word ♪ ♪ Found a silly word just now ♪ (laughs) Miss Stephanie's running the show today.

I'm going to ask her for a silly word!

You got a silly word for me, Miss Stephanie?

- I do.

Flabbergasted.

- Flabbergasted!

(gasps) Oh, that is a fun word!

♪ The word is flabbergasted ♪ ♪ The word is flabbergasted ♪ ♪ The word is flabbergasted just now ♪ ♪ Just now the word is flabbergasted ♪ ♪ The word is flabbergastered, flabbergasted just now ♪ (gasps) Oh man, this would be the start of a story that's just like, "What?!"

Hey, let's ask Brody for a short word.

What could it be Brody?

A short word.

- Let's do "cat."

- Wait, say that again?

Stew cat?

- Cat.

- Oh, cat!

(laughs) - I heard stew cat in my brain.

Okay, the cat's name is Stu.

(laughs) ♪ Found a cat ♪ ♪ Found a cat ♪ ♪ Found a cat just now ♪ ♪ The cat's name is Stu ♪ ♪ The cat's name is Stu ♪ Oh man, you know what just happened there?

That's so funny.

Um, I heard Stu cat, and sometimes that's where stories can begin, is just like, you hear something, you think, "Wait, what?"

Stories begin in all kinds of ways, silly words.

Short words.

Long words.

Let's see, let's do one more.

I was going to say long word, but I think flabbergasted, um, was a, that was a pretty long word.

How about a complicated word?

Friends watching the show, friends back stage, who's got a complicated word?

Cause the stories could get really sophisticated if we wanted to.

Let's go back to Brody and see, what have you got?

Do you have a complicated word for me?

- I think.

Maybe "deciduous" - Wait, what?

Deciduous?

Can you teach me what it means?

- It's a type of tree.

- Oh yeah, yeah!

- It's a, like, it's a tree that has the needles.

Leaves.

- Okay.

Deciduous.

I like the sound of that word.

Cool, thanks for teaching me this complicated, sophisticated word!

Okay, I'm going to put this in the context of a story, now.

The...

Wait, de, deciduous.

Deciduous, right?

Okay.

♪ I saw a deciduous tree ♪ ♪ I saw a deciduous tree ♪ ♪ I saw a deciduous tree just now ♪ ♪ Just now I saw a deciduous tree ♪ ♪ Saw a deciduous tree just now ♪ (laughs) This story could be all about a tree and how the leaves fall from the tree, and then we look at the little leaf and then we see a little bug.

And the bug flies up in the sky and we follow the bug all the way up to the moon!

Oh man, I'm sorry friends.

I'm getting so excited about all the possibilities of stories.

That's what the show's about today.

Storytelling.

So let's get to our friend Moby.

Let's keep things moving along.

What's Moby got for us today?

(bright music) - [Moby] I really, really, really love to read and listen to stories.

I'm so glad that there are storytellers in the world.

Aren't you?

I mean, movies, TV shows, cartoons, books, they're pretty much all stories.

Yeah, and stories that get handed down from generation to generation.

And we learn about different parts of the world.

And classic stories.

And new stories.

And short stories.

And long stories!

Huh.

What stories do you have to tell and share?

I hope you share them.

I hope you tell them.

(bright music) - [Wimee] So let's get to today's "Three Sentence Story."

Beginning, middle, end.

We do this on every show!

We come up with a very short story in three sentence.

Inspired by words from you guys, from our friends, from the team making this show.

Let's see, in today's story, let's see where it starts.

It'll start somewhere where I set the scene.

We establish the, you know, characters, the setting.

But then, in the second sentence, there's a problem!

(cries) But don't worry friends, because in the third sentence, what do we do?

Solve the problem!

(laughs) That was great.

We solved the problem.

So these are very, very short stories.

We could expand them to be a longer story!

Could be like the outline, right?

This could just be the start.

So many possibilities.

So we were singing a song, we were learning from Moby, getting inspired.

Right now, we're going to start a story.

Ooh, Siblee's idea of a river.

(laughs) I love it.

Okay, here's the start of the story, with river.

Long time ago, in a land far away, a worm and I rafted down the river heading south.

Ooh, I think I added a little more, that was kind of a long sentence.

But basically, my friend, worm, and I, were on the river heading south.

Oh-ho, this is like a journey.

It's an adventure.

Where we going to end up?

Uh oh, uh oh, we're on the river, and there's going to be a problem!

Oh no!

What is the problem?

We could add, we could come up with character name.

Oh hi, Keller!

Oh, fish!

Nice!

Okay, so I could come up with a name for the worm later, but we've got a problem with a fish.

Thanks, Keller.

Let's see.

Okay.

I was on the raft with my friend, worm, heading south on the river, a long, long time ago.

Out of nowhere, a giant fish jumped in the air and knocked over our raft.

(yells) Oh no!

The classic tale of a disaster.

A problem!

A situation that, "What's going to happen?!"

We've learned to love these characters.

(laughs) Me and the worm, we'll come up with a name later for the worm, but oh no, we've got our heroes!

Ooh, is the fish the villain?

I don't know!

I don't know if the fish did this on purpose, it may have just, but no matter what happened, there's a problem!

We're on the river!

(water crashing) How do worm and I get rescued?

How do we save ourselves?

What's going to happen?

Oh-ho, bed.

The solution lies in a bed.

(laughs) Ooh, that was kind of like a pun.

(laughs) Lay down in the bed.

Okay, okay, let's see.

Here we go.

Let's get to the solution.

Here we go.

My friend worm and I were rafting down the river, heading south, a long, long time ago.

Out of nowhere, a fish jumped in the air, knocked over our raft, and we were headed down underwater.

We were at the bottom of the riverbed when a queen-sized bed suddenly came up from below with the help of many crawfish, and um, I'm getting pretty complicated here.

How do we keep this simple?

Maybe the bed came from the sky?

Did the bed come... Oh man, okay.

Well, tell you what, friends, if you have any ideas for how we solve this solution, is it...

I like the play on words with the riverbed and an actual bed.

And maybe it's a flying bed.

But we got off our raft and onto the bed.

Do we get down to... What part of the world are we in?

We didn't add that detail.

But on purpose, friends!

I wanted to leave this all kinds of possibilities, for us to take further.

But our words today, they were... What was the first word?

First word was river.

Oh, there it is!

(laughs) Thanks!

River, then it was fish, that's right.

And then it was bed.

Nice, we got the words.

River, fish, bed.

Can't wait to see what Brody comes up with!

He's been working in the Wimage Lab.

Hey, Brody!

- Hi, Wimee.

Hi, friends.

- Oh man, this story.

Phew!

Yeah, what do you think?

- I think it was fun.

But, hey, Wimee, do you want to know something?

- Yeah, of course!

- So, my older brother is a storyteller.

He's written plays, books, and he reads to Brock and me most nights.

- That is awesome!

- This is one of his plays.

- Whoa.

I bet that takes a lot of work, a lot of time for him, right?

- Yeah.

And this is one of his books.

- [Wimee] Whoa!

Wow, what's the title?

It says, can I see the title?

"Magicians No More."

Oh-ho-ho!

Wow, I'm already drawn in by that title.

- Yeah, he's been working on it for a few years now.

- [Wimee] That's exciting!

He's putting in a lot of work!

Do you have any advice for him on the story?

Any feedback?

- No.

- Just keep going, right?

Keep going, big brother!

Nice!

I love it!

Thanks for sharing that!

So, what do you think?

The riverbed?

How did you visualize this crazy story?

Whoa!

Tell us, I see the fish.

Oh, I see the worm!

(laughs) And the riverbed.

I like it.

- Yeah, so, you're on the raft with the fish knocking your raft over.

And then, I don't know if you can see the book, 'cause it's behind the river, but... - [Wimee] Oh yeah!

It's getting washed away in the river, isn't it?

(yells) And I like the way you have the bed coming in, 'cause I wasn't sure yet if the bed should come down from below, or up above.

I like it!

And what's cool is sometimes the illustrations, they tell just as much of the story as the words do.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Hey, let's add something to this, friends.

Anyone at home, if you have an idea, share a possibility.

I'm wondering if maybe... Should we, let's get silly.

How about, oh, a chair!

There's a bed and a chair.

Maybe this is like a, like a furniture.

- Chair.

- Hey, Michael!

(laughs) - Okay, which chair do you want, Wimee?

- Hmm.

Ooh, let's go with that one!

- Okay.

- That one looks kind of fun.

It could be like a, a chair.

Ooh, we could put the chair on the bed, we could make, um, maybe there's chairs on the side of the river?

Ooh, fun!

Look at that!

Is that the bed?

Ooh, that's fun!

I like the way those two shapes go together.

- (laughs) Yeah.

- [Wimee] That's cool.

All right, well Brody... Ooh, sandwich!

Hey, that's always good to pack a lunch, too.

Flying umbrellas?!

Ho-oh!

Man, we got some great ideas flowing here.

Thanks, friends, for those ideas.

Hey, Brody, we'll check back later to see if you add any flying umbrellas or more chairs, more details.

I like it.

So, friends, it's time for today's "Language Explorers!"

Today, we're going to find out how to say today's words in Spanish!

Hi, Miss Sara!

- Hi, Wimee.

(laughs) - (indistinct) added flying umbrellas?

That would be a funny twist.

(wind whooshing) Just like Mary Poppins.

Wheee!

- Right, but we have done umbrellas in the past in this space, so we're not going to do umbrellas today.

We will do river.

- River.

- And I want to tell you something.

I draw first, a river, but it looked more like a creek, so I said, "No, I gotta draw a big river," because, you know, a river is usually big, it starts, it can start small, but it usually, you know, it's big.

So, river in Spanish, river you say, rio.

You gotta roll your Rs.

Rio.

- [Wimee] Rio.

Nice.

Man, I wanna go down that rio.

- There's a city called Rio, so there you go.

(laughs) - [Wimee] Ooh, Rio de Janeiro!

Right?

Is that have something to do with a river?

- River of Janeiro.

Yeah.

- That's cool!

- Yeah, right?

But I want to show you what I draw before, 'cause this looks more like a creek.

So in that case, you actually have to change it.

I wrote it rio but I was like, "no, no," it's riachuelo.

Riachuelo.

It's a small little creek.

And that is a different distinction, you know, that we gotta make.

- [Wimee] Yeah, gotcha.

- Then the next word that I had was fish.

- [Wimee] Fish.

- And this is for the word fish, in Spanish you say pez.

- [Wimee] Pez.

- Pez.

- [Wimee] Pez.

- Now, if it's a fish that you have caught and you're going to eat, then you have to change the word.

- [Wimee] Oh, I think I know!

Is it, is it, is it pio?

- Pescado.

- [Wimee] Pescado.

- Pescado But pez is still alive, so you see these fishes are happily alive and swimming around.

- [Wimee] Wait, that fish is out to get us on the raft.

I can see the look in his eye.

He's like, "I'm coming for the raft."

- (laughs) Yes, he was thinking about that.

Yes.

And the last word that we have today is the word cama.

Bed.

Cama.

- [Wimee] Cama.

- Cama.

- [Wimee] Cama.

- And it's not the same, like when you say the riverbed, that's a different word.

So you couldn't translate that part.

But those are the three words that I have with me today.

Let me see.

I don't think they're in order, but there you go.

- Yep.

Nice.

- Those are my words.

- There they are.

I love it!

I think that pez wants to go lay down in the cama.

(laughs) - I usually have a more sturdy cards, but this time I have, like, only papers.

- Thank you, Miss Sara!

Ho-oh, recently, I had the chance to sit down with some young authors and find out where they get ideas for their stories.

It's time for, "Kid Chat!"

(energetic music) - [Wimee] Hello, Shelley!

Welcome to the show!

- Hello!

How you doing today?

Doing good?

- Great!

Hi, Ellie, welcome to the show!

Hi, Lucio!

- Hi!

- Hello, Anja!

- Hi!

- [Wimee] Hi, welcome to the show!

You are a writer.

- Yeah.

- What, what did you write about in your story?

- So, I wrote about a mermaid who wanted to be a queen, but she couldn't and she found a magical cat.

- A boy named Jayden who gets anxiety for an upcoming swim meet, which is like, you know, a race for swimmers.

And along the way all sorts of terrible things go wrong, like missing his phone, not getting his schedule set up, but pulls to the end for a surprise.

- We gotta read it to find out the surprise, right?

- Well, yeah, that's true.

(laughs) Can't spoil it for you guys.

- I love it!

- It was about like, two dogs that like, escape from an orphanage, except both in different ways.

- That's powerful.

Was there something that inspired it?

- Like, my love for dogs.

Like I'm obsessed with dogs.

And I've written five stories on them.

- Wait, five stories on dogs?

Wow!

- Mine's about a cat called Callie who does like a thing in her class and she goes to space.

- Wow.

So, what inspired your writing?

- My mom's friend, Sarah, has a cat called Callie, too, and it likes space, so.

I was having trouble writing one night and then my mom gave me this writing prompt thing, so I got the idea for that.

- That's awesome!

That's so cool to combine those ideas and the writing prompt.

How do you get ideas?

- I just use my imagination and think of things.

- Just looking around sometimes I get ideas from when I read actual books.

- (gasps) Me, too.

I love that.

As a writer yourself, what advice would you share with other writers, or new writers?

- Carry a notebook so when you get inspired, you can write it down and don't forget it.

- So, when you write something that you're not really happy with yourself, don't say bad things about yourself, you don't like what you wrote.

That just means that you know how to make it better and you won't make the mistakes next time.

There's always room for improvement.

You can always revise your past works to meet your own expectations.

- What do you like about writing?

- That I can make up my own stories and be creative.

- [Wimee] You can!

You're right!

How do you get ideas?

- I just use my imagination and think of things.

- I like that you can sort of like, share something that can't happen in real life.

- I agree.

Using your imagination, right?

- Yeah.

(energetic music) - [Wimee] I noticed that ideas come from all different places and man, we've...

Right?

Right?

Those kids are super smart!

And everybody's got their own ideas and their own ways of thinking and sharing.

Ooh, you liked to make up stories as a kid.

Yeah!

Right?

Whether you're a kid or have years of experience, man.

I'm seriously inspired right now.

I want to just go, I want to go I just want to go write.

I guess I should keep the show going, though, right?

Okay, I'll work on it later.

Man, man oh man, I'm inspired.

We have the smartest guests, right?

I hear ya.

I believe it.

Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do something kind of cool here.

Miss Kelaine is over...

The Bookmobile is filled with so many books!

How many of you, friends, have ever seen the Bookmobile out and about throughout Kent County?

Well, we're going to go right now for Tech Talk to Miss Kelaine, live from the Bookmobile.

(phone ringing) (electricity buzzing) - [Wimee] (laughs) Hi, Miss Kelaine!

- Hello!

Hi, Wimee!

Hi, everybody!

So nice to see everybody!

- Man, you are live from the... Look at all those books behind you, right there!

- I am!

Look at this!

Okay, so let me see, will it be too much if I wiggle too much?

- [Wimee] Let's do it!

- Okay, so you can kind of see, there's over 2,000 stories stored on the Bookmobile right now.

Can you imagine all those storytellers, all the things that they went through to get their books published?

Do you know all the technology that goes into publishing a book, Wimee?

- [Wimee] Oh man, you're right.

Computers, and word processing, and editing, and printing, and all the people that run those machines.

- Well of course you know, because you have books.

You have books that are out and about that people can actually purchase!

Right?

I wonder how many people watching right now knew that Wimee is a professional storyteller, and has books.

With a little help from Kevin Kammeraad and, who else helps you, Wimee?

- [Wimee] Stephanie!

Stephanie wrote the.... And Michael!

- Stephanie and Michael.

- [Wimee] The newest one, yeah, the three of us, four of us.

Stephanie wrote the first one, "Vehicles and Colors."

- Awesome!

So, so you know what goes into it.

So we've got computers, we've got, even the machines that help to cut the paper, 'cause notice how everything is cut very smoothly along the edges of the books.

That's all machines that cut that.

That make the plastic part that's all shiny right now that are on your books.

That help to do the typesetting, so the, when you see fonts, when you see words, those are called "typeset."

The fonts that the computers help us to create so that they're all look exactly the same.

So, there's lots and lots and lots of technology that goes into... Maybe one of the ones here, I will actually show like a printing press.

(gasps) Wouldn't that be cool?

(laughs) - [Wimee] Yeah, we should do that!

- That's old fashioned technology, and new fashioned technology.

So, so exciting to see everybody.

- Miss Sara has a good question.

Yeah, what about when someone's writing and working on a computer, or if it's on paper, what about making mistakes and fixing those mistakes?

- Yep.

So, depending on what you're using, you can, the computer will tell you.

If you use an editing software, the computer will often put like a wavy red line, I don't know if anybody's ever seen that when they're typing on their computer or their iPad, and typing their story, it'll have a wavy red line on it.

And then also, you might also get a blue, or other colors to let you know when you've made a mistake.

Yep, the computers will help you with that, too!

- Well, Miss Kelaine, thanks so much!

As always, great to see you!

Thanks for visiting with us!

From live from the Bookmobile!

- Bye bye!

- (laughs) Man oh man, that's so cool.

Well, friends, Siblee's been watching the show, and I know Siblee was inspired by Miss Kelaine, and some of the kid writers.

Let's see what joke Siblee's got for us today!

(children cheering) - [Siblee] Where do books sleep?

- [Wimee] Hmm, um, I don't know.

- Under the covers!

(laughs) Two for one!

Why did the bird fly into the library?

To look for bookworms!

(laughs) (children cheering) - [Wimee] (laughs) Two for one.

Man.

Hey, friends, Michael's been hanging out backstage.

It's time for, "Minute with Michael."

(upbeat rock music) - (laughs) Looking for bookworms.

- That's so funny.

I've actually seen birds inside libraries, and sometimes we have to help the bird get out.

- They just want books, too!

- That's a true story.

(laughs) - I think the viewers are correct, Wimee.

We have some of the smartest guests, and I just want to encourage all of our friends that are out there to sometimes, just grab a pen, grab a paper, and just write ideas, and those ideas can turn into stories, and one day, we may put into a storybook.

- (laughs) I think we should.

- We should!

But before then, we've got some awesome animations that actually help tell a story.

Can we show one, Wimee?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

In fact, the book that you, and Stephanie, who's running the show, and Kevin, where did Kevin go?

- [Kevin] I'm over here.

- Oh yeah, he's over there.

This is like the perfect one to share right now.

I'll stop talking and let's just roll it.

- [Narrator] Wimee sat down, looked around the room, and began to wonder.

He dreamed of discovering the most magical book in the world.

(bells ringing) - What?

(laughs) (trumpet playing) (whistle blowing) (kookaburra calling) (elephant trumpeting) I can't believe it!

This is amazing!

(laughs) (cheery music) I tell you, we packed this episode.

It's jam packed!

Oh, I see you, Stephanie.

Can you put your camera on Miss Steph?

Show everybody.

Look what she's doing to me backstage!

Do that again!

That's what she's doing backstage!

Can you believe it?

But I got more stories to tell!

- I know, but it's time to dance!

- (laughs) I know.

All right, let's start the dance party!

Thanks, friends, for being here!

Keep telling stories!

Keep writing!

Keep creating!

Keep dancing!

Whoo hoo!

Thanks, friends!

I'm glad you were here!

If you've got a story to tell, tell it!

Share it!

- [Narrator] Wimee's Words is brought to you by PNC Grow Up Great Funterra by Smart Meijer and with additional support from these great partners.

(upbeat music) (clapping) (jazz music)