Competition To Find Stories For Children

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30770, 7 June 1965, Page 2

Competition To Find Stories For Children

“Tell me a story , please .. . .’’is a plea made by children the world over, and one which few adults can resist. The stories which hold children spellbound can be of many kinds, as any parent knows —classics written by the great writers for children, myths or folklore handed down through the generations, or stories of the teller’s own invention woven about things and events within the child’s experience but told with such artistry and magic that they open new windows on to the world for the child.

It is the stories in the latter group, those made up from the imagination to tell children about life today, which a British organisation, the Women’s Council, wants to hear about. The council is holding a competition for writers to encourage writing for children in Asia.

They hope to receive entries from India. Pakistan. Ceylon, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand the Philippines, Japan, Iran, Korea, Sikkim and Nepal. The stories should be for children up to 12 and two cash prizes, each of £2O, will be awarded for the stories selected for quality and writing. What makes a good story for children? Miss Eleanor Graham, who is to head the panel of judges for the competition, has years of experience to call upon when she

talks of the qualities of a good children’s story. She is herself a writer. One of her books. “The Children Who Lived in a Barn” was translated into several languages, and she was founder editor of Puffin Books, the paperbacks especially for children produced by Penguin Books. Miss Graham, who is now 7 retired but still writes and edits anthologies for children, says:

‘The first thing to keep in mind when writing for children is the need every child has to expand its experience, to find out what life is like. You need to try to see things from a child’s eye level, remembering that they often see far more and in greater detail from their level than we do as adults. Where things are concerned children want to know how they work. This, in a story-, means trying to set actuality before them. Exciting Situation “On the very first page of the story you should present a situation which is recognisable and exciting, with enough in it in common with their own experience to hold their attention and make them want to read on. The characters must be real and they must move, in a world w’hich the child can visualise even if it is a world outside their experience—the detail must be provided to allow the child to form a picture of the surroundings in which the events are taking place. “A book, to children, becomes reality—life, experience, light and movement. The story in it should lead them out of themselves, make them [think and wonder about the 1 world they live in. . .” Miss Graham does not agree with the view- held by some writers that, at the end of a children's story all the strands running through it should be brought to a conclusion. “The questions children ask at the end of a story are often completely unexpected to the story-teller, and are often very pointed. They hear, or read, things in a story which adults miss—the good story leaves the child with something to think about.” She is hoping that many of > the stories she will read in

the competition will come from people, men or women, who understand children and have experience of them — parents, grandparents or other relatives, teachers and nurses.

The chairman of the Women's Council (Mrs Winifred Holmes) emphasises that this competition is not aimed only at the professional writer. “We are hoping to get many entries from people, from mothers for example, who often tell stories to children but have never thought to write them down. Now we hope they will—and send them to us.”—(British Information Service).