How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell Part 4

The briefest examination of these three stories reveals the fact that one attribute is beyond dispute in each. Something happens, all the time.

Every step in each story is an event. There is no time spent in explanation, description, or telling how people felt; the stories tell what people did, and what they said. And the events are the links of a sequence of the closest kind; in point of time and of cause they follow as immediately as it is possible for events to follow. There are no gaps, and no complications of plot requiring a return on the road.

A second common characteristic appears on briefest examination. As you run over the little stories you will see that each event presents a distinct picture to the imagination, and that these pictures are made out of very simple elements. The elements are either familiar to the child or a.n.a.logous to familiar ones. Each object and happening is very like everyday, yet touched with a subtle difference, rich in mystery. For example, the details of the pictures in the Goldilocks story are parts of everyday life,--house, chairs, beds, and so on; but they are the house, chairs, and beds of three bears; that is the touch of marvel which transforms the scene. The old woman who owned the obstinate pig is the centre of a circle in which stand only familiar images,--stick, fire, water, cow, and the rest; but the wonder enters with the fact that these usually inanimate or dumb objects of nature enter so humanly into the contest of wills. So it is, also, with the doings of the three little pigs. Every image is explicable to the youngest hearer, while none suggests actual familiarity, because the actors are not children, but pigs. Simplicity, with mystery, is the keynote of all the pictures, and these are clear and distinct.

Still a third characteristic common to the stories quoted is a certain amount of repet.i.tion. It is more definite, and of what has been called the "c.u.mulative" kind, in the story of the old woman; but in all it is a distinctive feature.

Here we have, then, three marked characteristics common to three stories almost invariably loved by children,--action, in close sequence; familiar images, tinged with mystery; some degree of repet.i.tion.

It is not hard to see why these qualities appeal to a child. The first is the prime characteristic of all good stories,--"stories as is stories"; the child's demand for it but bears witness to the fact that his instinctive taste is often better than the taste he later develops under artificial culture. The second is a matter of common-sense. How could the imagination create new worlds, save out of the material of the old? To offer strange images is to confuse the mind and dull the interest; to offer familiar ones "with a difference" is to pique the interest and engage the mind.

The charm of repet.i.tion, to children, is a more complex matter; there are undoubtedly a good many elements entering into it, hard to trace in a.n.a.lysis. But one or two of the more obvious may be seized and brought to view. The first is the subtle flattery of an unexpected sense of mastery.

When the child-mind, following with toilful alertness a new train of thought, comes suddenly on a familiar epithet or expression, I fancy it is with much the same sense of satisfaction that we older people feel when in the midst of a long programme of new music the orchestra strikes into something we have heard before,--Handel, maybe, or one of the more familiar Beethoven sonatas. "I know that! I have heard that before!" we think, triumphant, and settle down to enjoyment without effort. So it is, probably, with the "middle-sized" articles of the bears' house and the "and I sha'n't get home to-night" of the old woman. Each recurrence deepens the note of familiarity, tickles the primitive sense of humour, and eases the strain of attention.

When the repet.i.tion is c.u.mulative, like the extreme instance of _The House that Jack Built_, I have a notion that the joy of the child is the pleasure of intellectual gymnastics, not too hard for fun, but not too easy for excitement. There is a deal of fun to be got out of purely intellectual processes, and childhood is not too soon for the rudiments of such fun to show. The delight the healthy adult mind takes in working out a neat problem in geometry, the pleasure a musician finds in following the involutions of a fugue, are of the same type of satisfaction as the liking of children for c.u.mulative stories. Complexity and ma.s.s, arrived at by stages perfectly intelligible in themselves, mounting steadily from a starting-point of simplicity; then the same complexity and ma.s.s resolving itself as it were miraculously back into simplicity, this is an intellectual joy. It does not differ materially, whether found in the study of counterpoint, at thirty, or in the story of the old woman and her pig, at five. It is perfectly natural and wholesome, and it may perhaps be a more powerful developing force for the budding intellect than we are aware.

For these reasons let me urge you, when you are looking for stories to tell little children, to apply this threefold test as a kind of touchstone to their quality of fitness: Are they full of action, in close natural sequence? Are their images simple without being humdrum? Are they repet.i.tive? The last quality is not an absolute requisite; but it is at least very often an attribute of a good child-story.

Having this touchstone in mind for general selection, we can now pa.s.s to the matter of specific choices for different ages of children. No one can speak with absolute conviction in this matter, so greatly do the taste and capacity of children of the same age vary. Any approach to an exact cla.s.sification of juvenile books according to their suitability for different ages will be found impossible. The same book in the hands of a skilful narrator may be made to afford delight to children both of five and ten. The following are merely the inferences drawn from my own experience. They must be modified by each teacher according to the conditions of her small audience. In general, I believe it to be wise to plan the choice of stories much as indicated in the table given on page 64.

At a later stage, varying with the standard of capacity of different cla.s.ses, we find the temper of mind which asks continually, "Is that true?" To meet this demand, one draws on historical and scientific anecdote, and on reminiscence. But the demand is never so exclusive that fict.i.tious narrative need be cast aside. All that is necessary is to state frankly that the story you are telling is "just a story," or--if it be the case--that it is "part true and part story."

At all stages I would urge the telling of Bible stories, as far as is allowed by the special circ.u.mstances of the school. These are stories from a source unsurpa.s.sed in our literature for purity of style and loftiness of subject. More especially I urge the telling of the Christ-story, in such parts as seem likely to be within the grasp of the several cla.s.ses. In all Bible stories it is well to keep as near as possible to the original unimprovable text.[1] Some amplification can be made, but no excessive modernising or simplifying is excusable in face of the austere grace and majestic simplicity of the original. Such adaptation as helps to cut the long narrative into separate units, making each an intelligible story, I have ventured to ill.u.s.trate according to my own personal taste, in two stories given in Chapter VI. The object of the usual modernising or enlarging of the text may be far better attained for the child listener by infusing into the text as it stands a strong realising sense of its meaning and vitality, letting it give its own message through a fit medium of expression.

[Footnote 1: _Stories from the Old Testament_, by S. Platt, retells the Old Testament story as nearly as possible in the actual words of the Authorised Version.]

The stories given in pages 133 to 246 are grouped as ill.u.s.trations of the types suitable for different stages. They are, however, very often interchangeable; and many stories can be told successfully to all cla.s.ses.

A vitally good story is little limited in its appeal. It is, nevertheless, a help to have certain plain results of experience as a basis for choice; that which is given is intended only for such a basis, not in the least as a final list.

CERTAIN TYPES OF STORY CLa.s.sIFIED

FOR KINDERGARTEN AND CLa.s.s I.:

Little Rhymed Stories (including the best of the nursery rhymes and the more poetic fragments of Mother Goose) Stories with Rhyme in Parts Nature Stories (in which the element of personification is strong) Nonsense Tales Wonder Tales

FOR CLa.s.sES II. AND III.:

Nonsense Tales Wonder Tales Fairy and Folk Tales Fables Legends Nature Stories (especially stories of animals)

FOR CLa.s.sES IV. AND V.:

Folk Tales Fables Myths and Allegories Developed Animal Stories Legends: Historic and Heroic Historical Stories Humorous Adventure Stories "True Stories"

The wonder tales most familiar and accessible to the teacher are probably those included in the collections of Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. So constant is the demand for these that the following list may be found useful, as indicating which of the stories are more easily and effectively adapted for telling, and commonly most successful.

It must be remembered that many of these standard tales need such adapting as has been suggested, cutting them down, and ridding them of vulgar or sophisticated detail.

From the Brothers Grimm:

The Star Dollars The Cat and the Mouse The Nail The Hare and the Hedgehog Snow-White and Rose-Red Mother Holle Thumbling Three Brothers The Little Porridge Pot Little Snow-White The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids The Sea Mouse

From Andersen:

Little Tiny The Lark and the Daisy The Ugly Duckling The Seven Stories of the Snow Queen The Flax The Little Match Girl The Fir-Tree The Red Shoes Ole Lukoie Monday Sat.u.r.day Sunday The Elf of the Rose Five Peas in a Pod The Portuguese Duck The Little Mermaid (much shortened) The Nightingale (shortened) The Girl who trod on a Loaf The Emperor's New Clothes

Another familiar and easily attainable type of story is the cla.s.sic myth, as retold in Kupfer's _Legends of Greece and Rome_.[1] Of these, again, certain tales are more successfully adapted to children than others. Among the best for telling are:

Arachne Pandora Midas Apollo and Daphne Apollo and Hyacinthus Narcissus Latona and the Rustics Proserpine

[Footnote 1: A well-nigh indispensable book for teachers is Guerber's _Myths of Greece and Rome_, which contains in brief form a complete collection of the cla.s.sic myths.]

CHAPTER III

ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING

It soon becomes easy to pick out from a collection such stories as can be well told; but at no time is it easy to find a sufficient number of such stories. Stories simple, direct, and sufficiently full of incident for telling, yet having the beautiful or valuable motive we desire for children, do not lie hidden in every book. And even many of the stories which are most charming to read do not answer the double demand, for the appeal to the eye differs in many important respects from that to the ear.

Unless one is able to change the form of a story to suit the needs of oral delivery, one is likely to suffer from poverty of material. Perhaps the commonest need of change is in the case of a story too long to tell, yet embodying some one beautiful incident or lesson; or one including a series of such incidents. The story of _The Nurnberg Stove_, by Ouida,[1] is a good example of the latter kind; Ruskin's _King of the Golden River_ will serve as an ill.u.s.tration of the former.

[Footnote 1: See _Bimbi_, by Ouida. (Chatto. 2s.)]

The problem in one case is chiefly one of elimination; in the other it is also in a large degree one of rearrangement. In both cases I have purposely chosen extreme instances, as furnis.h.i.+ng plainer ill.u.s.tration.

The usual story needs less adaptation than these, but the same kind, in its own degree. Condensation and rearrangement are the commonest forms of change required.

Pure condensation is probably the easier for most persons. With _The Nurnberg Stove_ in mind for reference, let us see what the process includes. This story can be readily found by anyone who is interested in the following example of adaptation, for nearly every library includes in its catalogue the juvenile works of Mlle. de la Ramee (Ouida). The suggestions given a.s.sume that the story is before my readers.

The story as it stands is two thousand four hundred words long, obviously too long to tell. What can be left out? Let us see what must be kept in.

The dramatic climax toward which we are working is the outcome of August's strange exploit,--his discovery by the king and the opportunity for him to become an artist. The joy of this climax is twofold: August may stay with his beloved Hirschvogel, and he may learn to make beautiful things like it. To arrive at the twofold conclusion we must start from a double premise,--the love of the stove and the yearning to be an artist. It will, then, be necessary to include in the beginning of the story enough details of the family life to show plainly how precious and necessary Hirschvogel was to the children; and to state definitely how August had learned to admire and wish to emulate Hirschvogel's maker. We need no detail beyond what is necessary to make this clear.

The beginning and the end of a story decided upon, its body becomes the bridge from one to the other; in this case it is August's strange journey, beginning with the catastrophe and his grief-dazed decision to follow the stove. The journey is long, and each stage of it is told in full. As this is impossible in oral reproduction, it becomes necessary to choose typical incidents, which will give the same general effect as the whole. The incidents which answer this purpose are: the beginning of the journey, the experience on the luggage train, the jolting while being carried on men's shoulders, the final fright and suspense before the king opens the door.

The episode of the night in the bric-a-brac shop introduces a wholly new and confusing train of thought; therefore, charming as it is, it must be omitted. And the secondary thread of narrative interest, that of the prices for which the stove was sold, and the retribution visited on the cheating dealers, is also "another story," and must be ignored. Each of these destroys the clear sequence and the simplicity of plot which must be kept for telling.

We are reduced, then, for the whole, to this: a brief preliminary statement of the place Hirschvogel held in the household affections, and the ambition aroused in August; the catastrophe of the sale; August's decision; his experiences on the train, on the shoulders of men, and just before the discovery; his discovery, and the _denouement_.

This not only reduces the story to tellable form, but it also leaves a suggestive interest which heightens later enjoyment of the original. I suggest the adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggin, in _The Story Hour_, since in view of the existence of a satisfactory adaptation it seems unappreciative to offer a second. The one I made for my own use some years ago is not dissimilar to this, and I have no reason to suppose it more desirable.

Ruskin's _King of the Golden River_ is somewhat difficult to adapt. Not only is it long, but its style is mature, highly descriptive, and closely allegorical. Yet the tale is too beautiful and too suggestive to be lost to the story-teller. And it is, also, so recognised a part of the standard literary equipment of youth that teachers need to be able to introduce children to its charm. To make it available for telling, we must choose the most essential events of the series leading up to the climax, and present these so simply as to appeal to children's ears, and so briefly as not to tire them.

The printed story is eight thousand words in length. The first three thousand words depict the beauty and fertility of the Treasure Valley, and the cruel habits of Hans and Schwartz, its owners, and give the culminating incident which leads to their banishment by "West Wind." This episode,--the West Wind's appearance in the shape of an aged traveller, his kind reception by the younger brother, little Gluck, and the subsequent wrath of Hans and Schwartz, with their resulting punishment,--occupies about two thousand words. The rest of the story deals with the three brothers after the decree of West Wind has turned Treasure Valley into a desert. In the little house where they are plying their trade of goldsmiths, the King of the Golden River appears to Gluck and tells him the magic secret of turning the river's waters to gold. Hans and Schwartz in turn attempt the miracle, and in turn incur the penalty attached to failure. Gluck tries, and wins the treasure through self-sacrifice. The form of the treasure is a renewal of the fertility of Treasure Valley, and the moral of the whole story is summed up in Ruskin's words, "So the inheritance which was lost by cruelty was regained by love."