The Joy of Story-Telling
Did you ever drop down upon a somewhat sleepy village where recreations
and amusements are almost unknown, and there gather the children together
and give them a story hour?
They come with wonder, even with suspicion that you have some ulterior
object as yet undisclosed, and they file in and eye you askance.
And then you begin to tell the stories—animal stories, for all children
love those; a story from the Bible which reveals to them the fact that
there are as great heroes among the Bible characters as are to be found
in secular history; a tale of chivalry which stirs the boys; and then
perhaps a dialect story from Uncle Remus;—and as you tell the stories the
suspicious look vanishes; the clear eyes before you look straight into
yours; then there creeps into them a brightness, an eagerness for more;
then comes the ripple of merriment; a spontaneous ring of laughter; and
then the plea, “One more, oh, please, _one more_!”
When you have done this; when you have won to you the shy children of a
whole village, then you know the pure joy of story-telling.
There is nothing better worth winning than the love of a child, and there
is no surer way of reaching a child’s heart than through the story.
_The Story Hour_
Story-telling may be made a serious matter as to its purpose, but it
should never be a serious matter as to its presentation. Whatever its
purpose, the story itself must be a source of joy to the hearer, or its
purpose fails. The lesson to be taught, whether moral or educational,
fails in its object if the story itself be irksome or stupid.
Conscientious teachers, feeling the weight of argument against them,
and taking up the _task_ of story-telling as an added obligation of
schoolroom duty, wonder why the results are not what the evidence of
other story-tellers had led them to believe. Story-telling, as a duty,
unlightened and unbrightened by a genuine love of the story and an
eagerness for the joy it is to bring to the listeners, can never prove a
success.
The story-teller must enter with all her heart and all her enthusiasm
into the life and beauty of the story she is telling, in order to achieve
the best results. Without this she cannot win the response of her
hearers, nor reap the reward which should be her own.
It is in the story hour that the true story-teller comes into her
kingdom. Here she is free to give to the expectant hearers just the tale
which they love to hear. She is not bound by rules or regulations, by
systems or courses, but may follow the promptings of her intuition and
sway her small auditors at her will.
Here the rig-ma-role story may find its proper place and delight by its
whimsical nonsense; the tale of chivalry, the story of brave achievement,
or of loyalty of purpose, may be made to stir her hearers; the dialect
story—which the children seldom read but love to hear—may lend its quaint
charm; or the nonsense tale may be used as the safety valve for bubbling
emotions. Varied in character as the stories may be, each is permeated by
the truest, purest joy in the telling—be it the classical story of the
“Wooden Horse” and the “Fall of Troy,” or the nursery tale of the “Little
Small Rid Hin” and the fall of “Reynard the Fox.”
Thus may we win the hearts and the confidence of the children, and
having won these, we may lead them whithersoever we will. And so, with
Kate Douglas Wiggin, I can truly say: “I would rather be the children’s
story-teller than the queen’s favorite or the king’s counsellor.”