Catch ’em young

The power of stories

I recently had the privilege of reading to our granddaughter's nursery school class – an enthusiastic bunch of three and four-year-olds. It was not one of my stories (!), but ‘The Billy Goats Gruff’.

The Billy Goats Gruff.

The original tale was created nearly two hundred years ago in Norway, and like so many of the time is a bit grisly. Fortunately, the modern renditions are sanitised.

Giving a talk or reading to adults is one thing, but engaging with small children is something far more scary. But the internet offered plenty of advice, and suitably prepared I was ready to meet the challenge. It was great to see the kids all sat in eager anticipation on the floor. Their expectation was backed up with lots of audience participation, the children enthusiastically banging their feet and hands on the floor to mimic the goats 'trip-trapping' over the bridge, underneath which lives the wicked troll, determined to make a meal of them.

As expected, good prevailed over evil, and the three goats all lived happily ever after. But the experience served to remind me that the telling of, and listening to stories is heavily intertwined in the human experience. Feelings, emotion and compassion are what define us.