As a parent, teacher and storyteller, I know the importance of reading to kids. Reading to kids allows them to enjoy tales that they might never attempt on their own. It encourages listening and a better understanding of literature. A colleague of mine once wrote, “We are pleasure seeking individuals by nature. Reading should always be viewed as an enjoyable event.”
My sister told me that when she was young my mother used to always share with her “Struwwelpeter” stories. I looked some of these stories up on the Internet and discovered that they were a series of poems written (in German) by Heinrich Hoffmann. Most of them were pretty gruesome. Here’s an example of one:
The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb
One day, Mamma said, “Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don’t suck your thumb while I’m away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he’s about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, – and then
You know, they never grow again.”
Mamma had scarcely turn’d her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!
The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor’s come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out – Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
“Ah!” said Mamma “I knew he’d come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb.”
My sister thinks that my mother grew up on stories like these. These stories were told, I’m sure, to teach children the consequences of their actions. You can read more of these tales by going to http://www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/petereng.html.
I never got the benefit of hearing any of these stories when I was young. The stories that I remember were from the author, Howard R. Garis. He was a prolific author that wrote under many pseudonyms. You might recognize some of the series of books he wrote under other name such as the Tom Swift Books and a number of the Bobbsey Twins books. The books that I remember were written under his own name. They were a series of stories about a rabbit named, Uncle Wiggily. What I remember most about these stories was that they never ended. Each chapter in an Uncle Wiggily book prepared you for the next chapter with a very strange set-up.
Here are some endings of some Uncle Wiggily stories from a collection entitled, Uncle Wiggily’s Story Book:
“And if the onion doesn’t make tears come into the eyes of the potato when they’re playing tag around the spoon in the soup dish, the next story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the bad boy.”
or
“And if the postman doesn’t try to slip a letter through the slot in the baby’s penny bank, and make the five cent piece jump over the dollar bill, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the cow.”
Mind you that none of the statements in these paragraphs, other than the title of the next chapter, had anything to do with the story just told.
Uncle Wiggily stories taught lessons, in a much more humane way.
We still read to my almost 14 year old every night. He enjoys everything from a present day novel to the old stories that we used to read him when he was much younger. And yes, I have read him all the Uncle Wiggily stories I could find.
Sometimes reliving the past is not a bad thing.
