How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell, page 38 by Sara Cone Bryant
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ukoie Monday Saturday Sunday The Elf of the Rose Five Peas in a Pod The Portuguese Duck The Little Mermaid (much shortened) The Nightingale (shortened) The Girl who trod on a Loaf The Emperor's New Clothes
Another familiar and easily attainable type of story is the classic myth, as retold in Kupfer's Legends of Greece and Rome.[1] Of these, again, certain tales are more successfully adapted to children than others. Among the best for telling are:
Arachne Pandora Midas Apollo and Daphne Apollo and Hyacinthus Narcissus Latona and the Rustics Proserpine
[1] A well-nigh indispensable book for teachers is Guerber's Myths of Greece and Rome, which contains in brief form a complete collection of the classic myths.
CHAPTER III
ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING
It soon becomes easy to pick out from a collection such stories as can be well told; but at no time is it easy to find a sufficient number of such stories. Stories simple, direct, and sufficiently full of incident for telling, yet having the beautiful or valuable motive we desire for children, do not lie hidden in every book. And even many of the stories which are most charming to read do not answer the double demand, for the appeal to the eye differs in many important respects from that to the ear. Unless one is able to change the form of a story to suit the needs of oral delivery, one is likely to suffer from poverty of material. Perhaps the commonest need of change is in the case of a story too long to tell, yet embodying some one beautiful incident or lesson; or one including a series of such incidents. The story of The Nurnberg Stove, by Ouida,[1] is a good example of the latter kind; Ruskin's King of the Golden River will serve as an illustration of the former.
[1] See Bimbi, by Ouida. (Chatto. 2s.)
The problem in one case is chiefly one of elimination; in the other it is also in a larg