A Kindergarten Story Book

Produced by Al Haines
By JANE L. HOXIE
1916
whose evening story-hour is the happiest memory of my childhood this little volume is affectionately inscribed
A number of the stories in this little book have been told to thousands of children in the kindergartens of Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburg, and other cities. The delight with which they have everywhere been listened to is an assurance of their appeal to child thought and sympathy. I know no equally simple, varied, and interesting collection of stories for children between the ages of four and six; and I earnestly hope that A KINDERGARTEN STORY BOOK may rapidly win the popularity it merits.
It is the author's aim in this collection to furnish stories for the child that shall be short, simple in form and familiar in subject, that shall contain much repetition, rhythm, dramatic possibility, alliteration, and also onomatopoetical and imaginative qualities, all of which the young child craves in the literature which is presented to him. The writer has striven to avoid elaborate introductions, long and intricate descriptions, and all those characteristics from which the child instinctively turns.
The matter here presented naturally falls under three heads: first, original stories; secondly, favorite childhood stories rewritten; thirdly, adaptations of popular tales.
Nearly all of the purely original stories are based upon some of the more vital motifs to be found in the best of our fairy lore.
Of the favorite childhood stories, Billy Bobtail is evidently founded upon The Bremen Town-Musicians ; and, as it is given here, it is an adaptation of a story heard frequently during the writer's childhood. It will readily be seen that Kid Would Not Go is only another form of The Old Woman and Her Pig, and that Fox Lox is identical with the tale of Chicken Little. The Wee, Wee Woman is supposedly an adaptation of the old English story of Teeny Weeny. It is given here in the form in which it was told to the author by a friend. The Little Long Tail will be recognized by many as a prime favorite of their early childhood.