How to Tell Stories to Children, and Some Stories to Tell

by Sara Cone Bryant

"Who will be the wolf?" Johnny or Marcus becomes the wolf. The kind woodchopper and the mother are also happily distributed, for in these little dramatic companies it is an all-star cast, and no one realises any indignity in a subordinate rôle.

"Now, where shall we have little Red Riding Hood's house? 'Over in that corner,' Katie? Very well, Riding Hood shall live over there. And where shall the grandmother's cottage be?"

The children decide that it must be a long distance through the wood,—half-way round the schoolroom, in fact. The wolf selects the spot where he will meet Red Riding Hood, and the woodchopper chooses a position from which he can rush in at the critical moment, to save Red Riding Hood's life.

Then, with gusto good to see, they play the game. The teacher makes no suggestions; each actor creates his part. Some children prove extremely expressive and facile, while others are limited by nature. But each is left to his spontaneous action.

In the course of several days several sets of children have been allowed to try; then if any of them are notably good in the several rôles, they are given an especial privilege in that story, as was done with the retelling. When a child expresses a part badly, the teacher sometimes asks if anyone thinks of another way to do it; from different examples offered, the children then choose the one they prefer; this is adopted. At no point is the teacher apparently teaching. She lets the audience teach itself and its actors.

The children played a good many stories for me during my visit in Providence. Of them all, Red Riding Hood, The Fox and the Grapes, and The Lion and the Mouse were most vividly done.

It will be long before the chief of the Little Red Riding Hoods fades from my memory. She had a dark, foreign little face, with a good deal of darker hair tied back from it, and brown, expressive hands. Her eyes were so full of dancing lights that when they met mine unexpectedly it was as if a chance reflection had dazzled me. When she was told that she might play, she came up for her riding hood like an embodied delight, almost dancing as she moved. (Her teacher used a few simple elements of stage-setting for her stories, such as bowls for the Bears, a cape for Riding Hood, and so on.)

The game began at once. Riding Hood started from the rear corner of the room, basket on arm; her mother gave her strict injunctions as to lingering on the way, and she returned a respectful "Yes, mother." Then she trotted round the aisle, greeting the woodchopper on the way, to the deep wood which lay close by the teacher's desk. There master wolf was waiting, and there the two held converse,—master wolf very crafty indeed, Red Riding Hood extremely polite. The wolf then darted on ahead and crouched down in the corner which represented grandmother's bed. Riding Hood tripped sedately to the imaginary door, and knocked. The familiar dialogue followed, and with the words "the better to eat you with, my dear!" the wolf clutched Red Riding Hood, to eat her up. But we were not forced to undergo the threatened scene of horrid carnage, as the woodchopper opportunely arrived, and stated calmly, "I will not let you kill Little Red Riding Hood."

All was now happily culminated, and with the chopper's grave injunction as to future conduct in her ears, the rescued heroine tiptoed out of the woods, to her seat.

I wanted to applaud, but I realised in the nick of time that we were all playing, and held my peace.