HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN ***

Original Etext produced by Charles Keller. Merged with new transcription by Michael Ciesielski, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

HOW TO TELL STORIES TO CHILDREN

AND SOME STORIES TO TELL

BY SARA CONE BRYANT

[Illustration]

LONDON

GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD.

2 & 3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.

1918

=Books for Story-Tellers=

_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_

=How to Tell Stories to Children= And Some Stories to Tell. By SARA CONE BRYANT. Tenth Impression.

=Stories to Tell to Children= With Fifty-Three Stories to Tell. By SARA CONE BRYANT. Seventh Impression.

=The Book of Stories for the Story-Teller= By FANNY COE. Fourth Impression.

=Songs and Stories for the Little Ones= By E. GORDON BROWNE, M.A. With Melodies chosen and arranged by EVA BROWNE. New and Enlarged Edition.

=Character Training= A Graded Series of Lessons in Ethics, largely through Story-telling. By E.L. CABOT and E. EYLES. Third Impression. 384 pages.

=Stories for the Story Hour= From January to December. By ADA M. MARZIALS. Second Impression.

=Stories for the History Hour= From Augustus to Rolf. By NANNIE NIEMEYER. Second Impression.

=Stories for the Bible Hour= By R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON, B.A.

=Nature Stories to Tell to Children= By H. WADDINGHAM SEERS.

* * * * *

MISS MAUD LINDSAY'S POPULAR BOOKS

=Mother Stories= With 16 Line Illustrations.

=More Mother Stories= With 20 Line Illustrations.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH GREAT BRITAIN

_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 s...

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