Mama, tell a story
There are still spaces available for our Writing for Charity event.
So much of my life is reading to little ones, so forgive me if I keep ruminating about it. It's been fascinating to have two kids in two different stages of storytelling at the same time. Maggie (18 months) likes simple pictures, bright colors, photographs of animals and things familiar. She's learning about all the things that make up her world, and the known is still exciting to her, so this make sense. She likes to identify animals, see babies do things like eat and walk and sleep, and see everyday objects like spoons and balloons and chairs and hats. She needs no narrative structure.
Max on the other had at age 4 is all about stories. He wants stories about everything--what we're doing now, what we might be doing later. He is on the cusp of toddlerhood and kidhood, still interested in Maggie's baby books but also reaching forward to the more complex ideas and things outside his ken. He likes a story about what if a monster ate our entire house just as much as what if we called Grandma and she wasn't there and we had to leave a message. Both stories are thrilling to him and help him process the unexpected. I find it interesting that he needs stories so much. We read lots of books, but he also likes to hear made up stories and make up his own, especially if he's upset about something. If things don't go his way and he just can't get over it, the best cure is to tell a story where things do go his way, where he is the hero and he makes things right. A good story is better tonic than a lollipop or even a hug. Stories help him structure and understand the world, and feel in control. Just as much as Maggie is learning about the world by seeing and naming objects, Max is learning by hearing and creating stories.
I think Maggie is learning objects and people, the players, if you will, of the stories of her life. Max is on the threshold of a lifetime of good stories, something I don't think he or anyone will outgrow. Life is cataloged by story. Narrative is essential. Everything and everyone are characters. And every event has a beginning, middle, and end.
This all reminds me of this wonderful quote about the purpose of fantasy and fairy tales:
"We all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales – because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him.
"This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water."
"The Ethics of Elfland," Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
[I mourned my camera at ALA last week, but always lovely Linda Sue Park has some photos of our Readers Theater on her blog.]