Stories to Tell Children: Fifty-Four Stories with Some Suggestions for Telling

Here is a book for anyone who believes that a childs imagination is worth nourishing. Sara Cone Bryant compiled these fifty-four tales in 1905 because teachers kept asking her for more stories to tell after her first collection became a classroom staple. What she gave them was a treasury: animal fables, folk tales from distant shores, and gentle stories about rabbits and roses that sound exactly like what a parent might whisper at bedtime. But this is more than a storybook. It is a teachers toolkit. Bryant preaches the lost art of oral storytelling, urging adults to abandon flat reading and learn to captivate. The stories here are meant to be performed, not just consumed. Some, like the tale of Raggylug the rabbit learning stillness, feel almost cinematic in their pacing. Others carry the cadences of old folk traditions. What binds them is a faith that children deserve narratives told with care and imagination. For modern parents or educators seeking alternatives to screen time, this collection offers both substance and technique.