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HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN AND SOME STORIES
TO TELL
BY SARA CONE BRYANT

To My Mother THE FIRST, BEST STORY-TELLER THIS LITTLE

BOOK IS DEDICATED

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 indebtedness to the few
persons without whose interested aid the little book would scarcely
have come to be. They are: Mrs Elizabeth Young Rutan, at whose
generous instance I first enlarged my own field of entertaining
story-telling to include hers, of educational narrative, and from whom I
had many valuable suggestions at that time; Miss Ella L. Sweeney,
assistant superintendent of schools, Providence, R.I., to whom I owe
exceptional opportunities for investigation and experiment; Mrs Root,
children's librarian of Providence Public Library, and Miss Alice M.
Jordan, Boston Public Library, children's room, to whom I am indebted
for much gracious and efficient aid.
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, Trubner & 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.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION The Story-teller's Art--Recent Revival--The
Difference between telling a Story and reading it aloud--Some Reasons
why the Former is more effective



CHAPTER I
THE PURPOSE OF STORY-TELLING IN SCHOOL Its immediate
Advantages to the Teacher-Its ultimate Gifts to the Child



CHAPTER II
SELECTION OF STORIES TO TELL
The Qualities Children like, and why--Qualities necessary for Oral
Delivery--Examples: The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, The Old
Woman and her Pig--Suggestions as to the Type of Story especially
useful in the several primary Grades-- Selected List of familiar Fairy
Tales



CHAPTER III
ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING
How to make a long Story short--How to fill out a short Story--General
Changes commonly desirable-- Examples: The Nurnberg Stove, by
Ouida; The King of the Golden River, by Ruskin; The Red Thread of
Courage, The Elf and the Dormouse--Analysis of Method

CHAPTER IV
HOW TO TELL THE STORY
Essential Nature of the Story--Kind of Appreciation
necessary--Suggestions for gaining Mastery of Facts --Arrangement of