The practice of telling stories to small children is an ages old one. In the olden era storytelling was a daily act willingly performed by the elders of the family to get their children off to sleep. In India a story was just a grandmother away. She told the grand child stories about the rich king and how he ruled his kingdom, the beautiful princess and her prince charming, about the lion-king of the jungle, about the epic mythological tales of Ramayana and Mahabharata and last but not the least about various good deeds performed by the god and goddesses. Children listened to these with great interest and actually did fall off to sleep. These stories always had a moral or learning attached to them and thus served a dual purpose. Not only did the child fall off to sleep but also learnt something from it.
The practice of storytelling exists even today but the way it is performed has undergone a drastic change. Over the years as life has become more hectic and challenging elders don’t really have the time to sit with their children and tell them stories. Grandmother tales have been replaced by special story books for children. With more and more nuclear families coming up children are taken care of by nannies or day care centres. These nannies and teachers read out stories from these books to the children but its not like it use to be.
These story books are based on various themes like bedtime stories, stories related to certain famous characters, books based on different festival stories, Another form of story books is also the comic strips like tinkle and archies which are popular amongst children in age group of 10-15 years. Some of the most commonly read children’s story books are:-
- Cinderella
- Hansel and Gratel
- Rapunzel
- Ali-Baba and Chalis Chor
- Little Red Riding Hood
- Snow white and Seven Dwarfs
Now in the internet age even small children are tech savvy and use Google to download e-story books and read by themselves. Online story books for kids as a concept is fast gaining popularity. Another way to relive these stories is watching them on the big screen as many of them are being made into movies the most recent one being Alice in Wonderland.
Stories and story books have been a large part of a kids childhood memories and will continue to do so. The form in which the stories about these fascination characters are presented might undergo numerous changes but these stories will always be a child’s friend.
