One of the tales storyteller Lynn Rubright tells is titled "Sampler from a Simpler Time" and was adapted from the book "Wide Meadows" by Cape Girardeau writer Jean Bell Mosley.

"Her books are Americana," Rubright says. "I was charmed by her writing."

Rubright, a storyteller for 30 years, also tells stories about persimmon pudding and "Anansi the Spider," an African folk trickster.

She will present "Mind Magic," billed as a storytelling performance for the entire family, at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Civic Center, 232 Broadway.

The event will be accompanied by an ice cream social.

The presentation is part of the Zonta Club of Cape Girardeau's "Literacy: Key to Discovery" series, which this summer has provided a program about inventions, a talk by children's author Vicki Grove and tours of KFVS-TV and the Southeast Missourian.

An education professor at Webster University in St. Louis, Rubright has traveled the world giving storytelling performances and speeches about storytelling. She co-founded the St. Louis Storytelling Festival, second-largest event of its kind in the United States.

She also founded the Metro Theater Circus, a traveling children's theater company, and was the coordinator of Project TELL, the first government-funded program to teach reading and writing through storytelling.

She began storytelling at home. "I started telling stories to my children when they were young and discovered a powerful way to capture their attention," she said.

"We sang and danced and played around."

She calls storytelling "an art and a craft." She says, "The art takes on an ethereal dimension at times. When you tell a story you have worked up, there is an energy that happens. It's much more improvisational than traditional theater."

Some people have more of a knack for it than others, but people are natural storytellers, Rubright says.

"You're always telling the story of your life one way or the other," she says.