The Mabuhay Storytellers’ Stewardship Guide
This page is here because…
“Stories are invitations into community.”
If you have found your way here, chances are you are becoming more than a reader.
Perhaps you are reading these stories aloud to a child.
Perhaps you are illustrating one of these tales as a listener.
Perhaps you are translating them into another language, adapting one for the stage, composing music, creating an animated short, or simply wondering why these books were created the way they were.
To all that have come this way, we say:
Welcome!
We say:
Mabuhay!
This guide exists to share the philosophy behind The Mabuhay Stories.
Not because we want every community to tell these stories in exactly the same way—
but so that every community that tells them can faithfully steward their same heart while bringing its own gifts to their telling… and to their ongoing illumination.
For stories, like communities, become most fully alive when they are shared from the heart.
What Does Mabuhay Mean?
“Mabuhay” is a joyful greeting heard throughout the Philippines.
It means much more than simply hello.
It means something closer to:
Live well.
Live long.
Flourish.
You are welcome here.
This spirit of welcome lives at the heart of every one of our Mabuhay Stories.
What Is a Canonical Story Score?
Mabuhay Stories are intentionally written as Canonical Story Scores.
A musical score is not a performance.
It is a faithful guide that allows countless performances while preserving the identity of the music.
Likewise, a Canonical Story Score preserves the heart of a story while intentionally leaving room for every community to illuminate it with its own gifts.
It preserves:
- the characters
- the emotional journey
- the rhythm
- the dialogue
- the heart of the story
It intentionally leaves room for:
- illustrations
- performances
- translations
- music
- animations
- local artistic traditions
- community discussions
- shared readings
No two performances will ever be identical.
That is not a flaw.
It is one of the purposes of these stories.
A Canonical Story Score preserves the identity of a story while intentionally leaving room for each performance to become a unique act of shared community.
The Storyteller’s Trinity
Every Mabuhay Story is written according to three simple principles.
Show more than you tell.
Respect the imagination of readers and listeners.
For…
Those who participate in these stories by reading them and hearing them read aloud discover truth most deeply when they experience it for themselves.
Invite more than you instruct.
Respect the freedom of each audience member.
For…
Stories are invitations into wisdom, not arguments to be won.
Connect hearts beyond the words you use.
Respect the people (and other creatures) who gather around the story.
For…
Good word choice matters.
And…
Connecting hearts matters most of all.
One Owner. One Illustrator.
Every owner of a Mabuhay Story Canonical Score is encouraged to create a lifelong, illustrated edition, much like each musician who endeavors to perform a published piece does the same.
This goes for:
Children.
Parents.
Grandparents.
Teachers.
Artists.
Anyone who encounters these stories, and makes them their own by participating in endless unfolding of their telling.
Your illustrations need not be “good.”
They only need be yours.
Every illustrated copy becomes a visual journal of one person’s journey through the Valley — yours.
No two copies should ever become exactly alike.
And that is something to CELEBRATE!
Frequently.
Why Read Stories Aloud?
Stories become different whenever people gather around them.
Every audience changes the experience.
Someone laughs.
Someone cries.
Someone notices something no one else has seen before.
Someone asks a question that changes the conversation.
A Canonical Story Score comes alive every time people gather to perform it.
Canonical Story Scores are acts of The Art of Possibility just waiting to happen.
Even the audience becomes part of the performance.
Every family.
Every classroom.
Every library.
Every neighborhood.
Every generation.
Every unique gathering of hearts becomes part of the artwork itself.
That is why our Community Reading License enthusiastically encourages reading these stories aloud in community and giving each listener a licensed copy of their own to illuminate as their own.
Communities are built one shared story at a time.
Stewardship Rather Than Ownership
The Mabuhay Stories belong to their author under copyright law.
But every reader and every hearer becomes a steward of the story.
Stewards do more than preserve.
They nurture.
They illustrate.
They perform.
They translate.
They welcome others into the story with their own unique contributions to the canonical body outlined in the score.
That is why our licenses are intentionally generous.
A well-loved story does not become smaller when it is shared faithfully.
It becomes more alive!
Translations and Adaptations
We hope these stories travel.
Not simply across countries.
Across generations.
Across neighborhoods.
Across schools.
Across cultures.
Across artistic traditions.
If you wish to translate, perform, illustrate, animate, compose music for, or otherwise steward these stories within your own community, we would be delighted to begin that by, so that the licensing for such stewardship is transmitted in the best possible ways, by the best possible means.
The goal is not merely to create copies.
The goal is to cultivate communities that care.
Why So Much White Space?
The empty spaces are not empty.
They belong to the illustrator.
They belong to the reader.
They belong to the listener.
They belong to silence.
They belong to wonder.
Every page is intentionally paced as a single emotional beat.
This creates space for illustrations…
space for conversation…
space for laughter…
space for tears…
and space for hearts to discover things words alone could never fully say.
Our Hope
Mabuhay Stories were never intended to become merely a collection of books.
We hope they become stories that are:
read,
illustrated,
shared,
performed,
translated,
sung,
remembered,
and lived—
right on the streets where we live.
If, many years from now, children in different countries are illustrating the same story in wonderfully different ways…
if grandparents are reading these stories aloud before bedtime…
if classrooms are performing them…
if artists are painting them…
if filmmakers are animating them…
if neighbors are discovering one another through them…
then these stories will have become what they were always meant to be.
Our Dream
When theses stories help others dream, our dreams come true.
If they help one more child to feel welcome…
If they encourage one more family to read together…
If they inspire one more artist to create…
If they help one lonely neighbor discover just one more friend…
If they travel farther than we ever could have on our own…
This is when our stories become what they were always meant to be.
They become:
Mabuhay.
Indeed.
And until we meet again…
May YOU have a MABUHAY DAY!