SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Naito in this column does not necessarily producte subsequent rovirial
We are all familiar with the helpless self-consciousness which assails a Man who has undertaken to toll a story to a child. Re knows it is a good story, if only he can tell it as it was told to him, but he does not know how. Miss Marie Shedlock in The Art of Story-Telling (John Murray, 5s. net) instructs us at some length, not only how to tell it, but also what to tell. She gives us lists of volumes for refer- ence, specimen stories, rules and regulations, good advice and awful warnings. Her book is full of humour, and contains some delightful anecdotes, among them one of a small boy who remarked at the end of a mild adventure tale: " Don't you know that I don't take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore ? " But we still believe that the only hope of ettOtte88 in the telling of a story to children lies in vivid imagination and absolute spontaneity, in giving free scope to the personality of the teller, with due regard for the taste of the audience ; and that a raconteur who is conscious of danger, and pauses to invoke Miss Shedlock's help, is assuredly lost.
Previous page
