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14 January
NO 1251
Bedtime stories
A good bedtime story is one which adults and children can read with equal pleasure. One that has a clear narrative and is written in such a way that the reader and listener can identify with characters and situations at different unconscious as well as conscious levels. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a good example of a bedtime story we have read recently. It has all the childhood wishes and the morality of a fairy story. (And talking of fairy stories, when will we realise with Jung and Tolkien, how vital they are in the current era?) My personal favourites are the Narnia stories by C. S. Lewis. There are seven of them in all, beginning with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and ending with The Last Battle. For six to 14-year-olds they are as thrilling as they are moving to parents.
Let me give you an example of the effect they can have.
One of our staff, Mike, was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to two Nigerian boys (twins, aged 12 years) after much thought about how appropriate such English stories would be to children whose first language and culture had been Yoruba. We decided that they were universal enough (as are all good myths or stories) to be worth a try. All went smoothly until Aslan, the great and mysterious lion, was cruelly tortured by the followers of the wicked, white witch. They even cut off his magnificent mane before the final deathblow is administered on a table of stone, by the witch. At this point the Nigerians seemed to lose interest. Mike feared that they had lost the thread of the story.
He continued reading, however, and came to the passage where Lucy and Susan are weeping beside the body of Aslan. They walk away. At dawn, the table cracks and the body is gone. Their sadness and confusion are compounded until suddenly they hear Aslan's voice. He is alive again.
At this point the two Nigerian boys leapt up, hugged each other, and for at least a minute rushed round their bedroom, jumping over beds, dancing sometimes in tandem, sometimes independently, shouting with joy "He's alive!". Mike watched in utter (British) amazement until they finally sat down, eager to hear what happened next.
The story continues and this is what it says:
"A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop ... It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia ... " In a remarkable way, the Nigerians had entered into the story. C. S. Lewis would have been thrilled.
Today I took the third Narnia story off my shelf for the same boys, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They are now firm Narnia fans, and in the process have helped me to see the importance of bedtime stories. As I heard the Christmas story this year in their presence I felt like crying out: "He's come!" Even though I didn't go any further, I'll always see Narnia, Easter and Christmas in a new light.
KEITH WHITE
White, K. (1995). Daily Rythms and
Bedtime Reading. The Child Care Worker, 13 (6), p. 2.
