Part 1 (1/2)

Stories to Tell to Children

by Sara Cone Bryant

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STORY-TELLER

Concerning the funda a story, I have little to add to the principles which I have already stated as necessary, in my opinion, in the book of which this is, in a way, the continuation But in the two years which have passed since that book ritten, I have had the happiness of working on stories and the telling of the teachers and students all over this country, and in that experience certain secondary points of method have come to seem more important, or at least more in need of emphasis, than they did before As so often happens, I had assuranted;” whereas, to the beginner or the teacher not naturally a story-teller, the secondary or ireater difficulty than the estions which follow are of this practical, obvious kind

Take your story seriously No matter how riotously absurd it is, or how full of inane repetition, reh to tell, it is a real story, and must be treated with respect If you cannot feel so toward it, do not tell it Have faith in the story, and in the attitude of the children toward it and you If you fail in this, the i youryour accuracy and iinative vividness

Perhaps I can irls in a class which was studying stories last winter; I feel sure if she or any of her fellow students recognizes the incident, she will not resent being uise of a warning example

A few members of the class had prepared the story of ”The Fisherirl called on was evidently inclined to feel that it was rather a foolish story She tried to tell it well, but there were parts of it which produced in her the touch of shamefacedness to which I have referred

When she came to the rhyme,--

”O man of the sea, coue ofa boon of thee,”

she said it rather rapidly At the first repetition she said it still le she said it so fast and so low that it was unintelligible; and the next recurrence was toos, you know!” Of course everybody laughed, and of course the thread of interest and illusion was hopelessly broken for everybody

Now, any one who chanced to hear Miss Shedlock tell that sareat opportunity for expression, in its very repetition; each tirin and unwillingness was greater, and his sule IS foolish; that is a part of the charm But if the person who tells it FEELS foolish, there is no charm at all! It is the sae: if the speaker has the air of finding what he has to say absurd or unworthy of effort, the audience naturally tends to follow his lead, and find it not worth listening to

Let e, then, take your story seriously

Next, ”take your ti, perhaps It does notin a speaker than too great deliberateness, or than hesitation of speech

But it means a quiet realization of the fact that the floor is yours, everybody wants to hear you, there is ti and no one will think the story too long This mental attitude must underlie proper control of speed Never hurry A business-like leisure is the true attitude of the storyteller

And the result is best attained by concentrating one's attention on the episodes of the story Pass lightly, and comparatively swiftly, over the portions between actual episodes, but take all the time you need for the elaboration of those And above all, do not FEEL hurried

The next suggestion is eminently plain and practical, if not an all too obvious one It is this: if all your preparation and confidence fails you at the crucial moment, and memory plays the part of traitor in some particular, if, in short, you blunder on a detail of the story, NEVER ADMIT IT If it was an uniht on, accepting whatever you said, and continuing with it; if you have been so unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a necessary link in the chain, put it in, later, as skillfully as you can, and with as deceptive an appearance of its being in the intended order; but never take the children behind the scenes, and let the of your mental machinery You must be infallible You must be in the secret of the mystery, and admit your audience on so doubts as to your cos you relate

Plainly, there can be lapses of , that frank failure is the only outcome, but these are so few as not to need consideration, when dealing with so simple material as that of children's stories There are times, too, before an adult audience, when a speaker can afford to let his hearers be amused with him over a chance mistake But with children it is most unwise to break the spell of the entertainment in that way Consider, in the matter of a detail of action or description, how absolutely unimportant the mere accuracy is, compared with the effect of smoothness and the enjoyood or evil, half so long as they will remember the fact that you did not know it So, for their sakes, as well as for the success of your story, cover your slips of memory, and let them be as if they were not

And now I come to two points in method which have to do especially with hu the appreciation of the joke Every natural humorist does this by instinct and the value of the power to story-teller can hardly be overestimated

To initiate appreciation does not h even that is sometimes natural and effective; one merely feels the approach of the huests to the hearers that it will soon be ”tiestion usually comes in the form of facial expression, and in the tone And children are soanother's lead than their elders, that the expression can be uarded than would be permissible with a , in this way; they love the anticipation of a laugh, and they will begin to diestion of hu, they are sometimes afraid to follow their own instincts Especially when you are facing an audience of grown people and children together, you will find that the latter are very hesitant about initiating their own expression of huet their surroundings then, and ive them a happy lead Often at the funniest point you will see soony of endeavor to cloak the mirth which he--poor mite--fears to be indecorous Let hioing to

Having so stimulated the appreciation of the huive your hearers time for the full savor of the jest to per an audience of its rights, to pass so quickly from one point to another that the ers to take in the old Every vital point in a tale iven a certain amount of time: by an anticipatory pause, by some form of vocal or repetitive emphasis, and by actual time But even more than other tales does the funny story demand this

It cannot be funny without it

Every one who is familiar with the theatre ive this pause for appreciation and laughter Often the opportunity is crudely given, or too liberally offered; and that offends But in a reasonable degree the practice is undoubtedly necessary to any forood example of the type of humorous story to which these principles of method apply, is the story of ”Epaminondas” It will be plain to any reader that all the several funny crises are of the perfectly unmistakable sort children like, and that, moreover, these funny spots are not only easy to see; they are easy to foresee The teller can hardly help sharing the joke in advance, and the tale is an excellent one hich to practice for power in the points mentioned

Epaminondas is a valuable little rascal from other points of view, and I mean to return to him, to point a moral But just here I want space for a word or two about the matter of variety of subject and style in school stories

There are tholly different kinds of story which are equally necessary for children, I believe, and which ought to be given in about the proportion of one to three, in favor of the second kind; I make the ratio uneven because the first kind isin its effect