“There were once five and twenty tin soldiers who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon.”
Hans Christian Andersen used the child’s instinctive love of counting his toys, and a bit of humor that tickles a child’s fancy, when he wrote this opening paragraph of his wonderful old allegory, “The Faithful Tin Soldier.”
“Once upon a time there lived a cat and a parrot and they thought they would ask each other to dinner, turn and turn about.”
This folk tale of “The Greedy Cat” opens with a strong sense appeal. The children’s interest aroused in the first sentence by means of the progressive dinner arrangement of the famous cat is sustained to the last word of the story.
“He was a wee little duck with a very long tail, so he was called Drakestail. Now Drakestail had some money of his very, very own and the King asked if he might take it. So Drakestail loaned all his money to the King--”
In this old folk tale, the gist of which is the merry adventures of a duck, the story interest begins with the first sentence. The children are introduced, with no unnecessary preliminaries of description or explanation to the hero, Drakestail, and then they are plunged into the story itself, interesting and direct in its appeal.
“Some children were at play in their playground one day, when a herald rode through the town, blowing a trumpet and crying aloud: ‘The King! The King is coming!’”
In this story, Laura E. Richards’ “Coming of the King,” to be found in her collection of short stories, “The Golden Windows,” a strong sense appeal commands the child’s involuntary attention at the beginning of the story. The familiar figures, children at play in their playground, are introduced to the sound of a trumpet’s call, instantly attracting the attention of the child listeners.
Once the story teller has learned story selection, having in mind a beginning that will hold the attention of her audience from her first word, her success will be secured. It is also possible to carry this interest which has been secured for the child the instant that the curtain rolls up, straight through to the end of the story, because of its compelling beginning. The opening paragraph of a child’s story should be the theme, tuned to the key and melody of child interest about which and on which the rest of the story plays. The noteworthy dinner of the cat and the mouse forms the keynote for the rest of the classic adventures of the Greedy Cat. The “wee little duck” and the avaricious old King whom we meet in the first paragraph are the main actors in the story drama of Drakestail. The playground of the children that we see in the first sentence of Mrs. Richards’ “The Coming of the King,” is the scene of a story miracle almost unparalleled in short story writing for children.
