This year the stories are drawn from the Norse myths and the
Niebelungen Lied. They are told by the children's librarians and
the students of our Training school for children's librarians,
every Friday afternoon from November first to April first. As the
hour draws near, the children's rooms begin to fill with eagerly
expectant children. There is an atmosphere of repressed
excitement, and when the appointed minute comes, the children
quickly form into line and march into the lecture room where the
story is told. Once there, the children group themselves on the
floor about the story teller, and all is attention. It may be
that the story is a hard one to tell, the process of adapting and
preparing it may have been difficult, but in the interested faces
of the children and in the bright eyes fixed upon her face, the
story teller finds her inspiration.
Extra copies of books containing Norse myths have been provided
for each children's room. Since few of these books are for very
young children, we tell these poetic stories of our Northern
ancestors to the older boys and girls only. For the younger ones
there are such stories as The Three Bears, Hop-o'-my-thumb, and
other old nursery favorites. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and a few
other holidays, the program is dropped and one full of the spirit
of the season is told instead. That the children enjoy and
appreciate the stories is seen by the steadily increasing
attendance, and by the fact that the same children return week
after week. Teachers say the very worst punishment they can
inflict is to detain a child so late on Friday that he misses his
story hour. During the summer months, and early fall, when no
stories were being told, there were many anxious inquiries as to
when the story hour would begin. At our West End branch the
children clamored so for their stories that the work was
commenced a month before the time for beginning the regular
program.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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