And it is not always the small library which might better tell its stories in school.Consider the city library which has a story teller who tells stories at a Branch.She gets crowds of children,it is true,but many more do not come.She has too many for her story room.Even if she repeats her story until all the eager children get in eventually to hear it the results are of doubtful benefit.It has meant a fearfully strenuous day for the story teller and for the whole Branch;the chances are that the last children to hear the tale gained little from it because the story teller was too tired to tell it well;many of the children have spent most of the afternoon in the scuffle of trying to get in and having to wait when they might have been out of doors playing;and practically all the children were the same ones who always come.And,as in a small library,all the children want the same books,if the stories were good.
School people,as a rule,are very cordial to the library story teller.Since they are,this method seems preferable to the Story Hour at the library.The story teller,besides being spared the difficulty of managing the story hour at the library,has a better opportunity to keep in touch with school work;can reach all the children instead of the same group week after week;interests teacher as well as the children in the books from which the stories are told;and saves the library considerable money in janitor work and heat and light bills.Probably the story teller has neither time nor strength to tell stories both in school and library.Would she not be wise in such a case to tell her stories in the schoolroom?
There is another thing that should be said of story telling as a library tool.If we aim by stories to advertise the best books,how shall we tell the stories to make the books seem most attractive and to get the best results?
We say that the impression the child gets from a story told is greater than that gained from a story read.Then we proceed to tell him in our own words stories which we adapt from the books we think he should know,trusting that he will want the books themselves as a result.Well and good for those books which depend for their value upon subject matter,regardless of style;for folk-lore,for many of the fairy tales and other stories,but not equally well and good for books that are valuable for their literary forces.If a story is dramatic enough for the telling and is written by a master,is it not a shame to give it to a child in an inferior form when he might have it as it was written?If a master did it,it is every bit as dramatic and as easy for the child to understand in the form in which the master wrote it as in the story teller's version,and many times more beautiful.
Why do children's librarians spend so much time in the preparation of their own versions of the good stories of the world when they have so much material which they can use at first hand?The theory is,that a story has more life if told in the story teller's words,that it is likely to be stiff and formal if she must confine herself to the author's words.This need not be so.If the story teller enjoys the story,as a story teller always must,if she appreciates the charm of its expression as the author wrote it,and sees the value of this charm,the author's words will come easily from her lips with all the life of the original.She may have had to cut the original more or less,but that can usually be done without perceptibly marring the story.If the tale does not lend itself to this kind of treatment and she feels that she must adapt the whole thing for her audience,she can at least quote paragraphs.If the story teller gives the child her own version,the child wants the story because or in spite of what she put into it.He gets the book,fails to find the story teller part of it and,as that is all he is after puts the book down or finds the real thing and thinks the teller didn't know it very well,for "She left out some of the best parts."I am not saying that the story teller's version is worthless.It is good as far as it goes.I am only saying that by it we often miss an opportunity to give the children something better.None of us can tell the Andersen or the Kipling stories as well as the men who wrote them.Why not give them to the children "straight out of the book,"as the children say,and why not,for instance,when we are telling stories of the Trojan War,give them passages verbatim from Bryant's Iliad?This kind of story telling may take more time for preparation than the other for some people,it is true,but the resulting benefit is greater.The librarian who has once told an Andersen story in the words of a close translation will never want to do it in her own again.
In spite of all we say about giving him the best books,are we not giving the child too little credit for literary appreciation?
Are not some of our simplified versions of the good stories of the world a little too simple?We refuse to leave upon our shelves such foolish things as the Hiawatha primer,or the Stevenson reader (this gives upon one page a poem from the child's garden and on the opposite page a neat translation!),and yet do we not offend sometimes in the same way in our story telling?Let us not run the risk of spoiling the atmosphere and beauty of a good tale by over-adapting it.If it is beyond the child's comprehension in the beginning,let us leave it for him to find when he is older.If our library story telling has been what it should be,the road will be an easy one for him to follow.
