How to Tell Stories to Children, and Some Stories to Tell | ||
PREFACE
THE stories which are given in the following pages are for the most part those which I have found to be best liked by the children to whom I have told these and others. I have tried to reproduce the form in which I actually tell them,—although that inevitably varies with every repetition,—feeling that it would be of greater value to another story-teller than a more closely literary form.
For the same reason, I have confined my statements of theory as to method, to those which reflect my own experience; my "rules'' were drawn from introspection and retrospection, at the urging of others, long after the instinctive method they exemplify had become habitual.
These facts are the basis of my hope that the book may be of use to those who have much to do with children.
It would be impossible, in the space of any pardonable preface, to name the teachers, mothers, and librarians who have given me hints and helps during the past few years of story-telling. But I cannot let these pages go to press without recording my especial indebted-
My thanks are due also to Mr David Nutt for permission to make use of three stories from English Fairy Tales, by Mr Joseph Jacobs, and Raggylug, from Wild Animals I have Known, by Mr Ernest Thompson Seton; to Messrs Frederick A. Stokes Company for Five Little White Heads, by Walter Learned, and for Bird Thoughts; to Messrs Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner Co. Ltd. for The Burning of the Ricefields, from Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, by Mr Lafcadio Hearn; to Messrs H. R. Allenson Ltd. for three stories from The Golden Windows, by Miss Laura E. Richards; and to Mr Seumas McManus for Billy Beg and his Bull, from In Chimney Corners.
S. C. B.
How to Tell Stories to Children, and Some Stories to Tell | ||