Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/45

 and places which only the imagination can trace. For instance, of what value or interest would the story of "Toads and Diamonds" be to a child who never had seen a toad and who had no knowledge of what a diamond was like? And does not the boy's understanding of "How Thor Went Fishing" lie in the fact that he has fished?

Little children love to be told stories of the life which they know by daily contact; stories of the home and of the home industries, of school, of children, of pets and animals. They live in "a daily fellowship with nature and all creatures." Fairy tales and stories of animals are doubly delightful when the fairies and the animals do the things which children do. This does not imply that the story be commonplace, for the normal activities of children are far removed from the commonplace, and the story, having its point of contact established, should, through its imaginative or its moral influence, carry the child into quite unexplored regions of beauty and truth.

This leads us to another determining factor—the determining factor—in choosing a story.