Children love songs, action rhymes and stories. They love their parents telling them stories, whether at bedtimes, mealtimes, play times, festivals or family occasions. Parents can use this book to forget themselves and just enjoy being with their children and telling stories, often again and again! Storytelling is vital for the development of language which is why Einstein suggested telling fairytales to stimulate children’s imagination and thinking. Fairytales, Families & Forests is a handy guide to storytelling with children with a unique treasury of 50, time-tested stories to enrich family life and instil a love of trees, nature and the outdoors. Fairytales, Families and Forests is the sequel to The Natural Storyteller: Wildlife tales for telling, by Georgiana Keable. This new title encourages parents and teachers of very young children to tell stories in their family or pre-school. There is a chapter for each year of the child’s life from birth to seven years, with age specific stories, verses, games and how to use them, including the use of sign language and special needs. Each year will include ideas for celebrating the seasons, for participation, for harnessing rhythm and rhyme, puppets and crafts. A generous number of stories and verses will be offered for each year in the child’s life as examples. References will be made to research on the effect on children of technology vs. storytelling. The ethical content of traditional tales, and the expression of different temperaments is baked into the material.
