A chair may become a horse, a
chest of drawers a coach and six, a hearthrug a battlefield, a newspaper a
crown of gold. And these are facts which the story-teller must realise,
and choose and shape the stories accordingly.
Many an old book, which to a modern grown person may seem prim and
over-rigid, will be to the child a delight; for him the primness and the
severity slip away, the story remains. Such a book as Mrs Sherwood's
_Fairchild Family_ is an example of this. To a grown person reading it for
the first time, the loafing propensities of the immaculate Mrs Fairchild,
who never does a hand's turn of good work for anyone from cover to cover,
the hard piety, the snobbishness, the brutality of taking the children to
the old gallows and seating them before the dangling remains of a
murderer, while the lesson of brotherly love is impressed are shocking
when they are not amusing; but to the child the doings of the naughty and
repentant little Fairchilds are engrossing; and experience proves to us
that the twentieth-century child is as eager for the book as were ever his
nineteenth-century grandfather and grandmother.
Good Mrs Timmin's _History of the Robins_, too, is a continuous delight;
and from its pompous and high-sounding dialogue a skilful adapter may
glean not only one story, but one story with two versions; for the infant
of eighteen months can follow the narrative of the joys and troubles,
errors and kindnesses of Robin, Dicky, Flopsy and Pecksy; while the child
of five or ten or even more will be keenly interested in a fuller account
of the birds' adventures and the development of their several characters
and those of their human friends and enemies.
Pages:
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235