nes for children! But it is not easy for an
adult to gather mere sense or motor associations without a plot thread
to string them on. The children's response to the two I have attempted
in this collection, "Old Dan" and "My Kitty," make me eager to see it
tried more commonly.

All this means that the small child's attention and energy are absorbed
in developing a technique of observation and control of his immediate
surroundings. The functioning of his senses and his muscles engrosses
him. Ideally his stories should happen currently along with the
experience they relate or the object they reproduce, merely deepening
the experience by giving it some pleasurable expression. At first the
stories will have to be of this running and partly spontaneous type.
But soon a child will like to have the story to recall an experience
recently enjoyed. The living over of a walk, a ride, the sight of a
horse or a cow, will give him a renewed sense of participation in
a pleasurable activity. This is his first venture in vicarious
experiences. And he must be helped to it through strong sense and
muscular recalls. I have felt that these fairly literal recalls of
every day details _did_ deepen his sense of relationships since by
himself he cannot recapture these familiar details even in a simple
chronological sequence.

But if stories for a two or a three-year-old need to be of himself
they must be written especially for him. Those written for another
two-year-old may not fit. Consequently the first three stories in this
collection are given as types rather than as independent narratives.
"Marni Takes a Ride" is so elementary in its substance and its form as
to be hardly recognizable as a "story" at all. And yet the appeal is the
same as in the more developed narratives. It falls between the embryonic
story stage of "Peek-a-boo!" and Marni's second story. It was first told
during the actual ride. Repeated later it seemed to give the child a
sense of adventure,--an inclusion of and still an extension of herself
beyond the "here" and "now" which is the essence of a story. Both of
Marni's stories are given as types for a mother to write for her
two-year-old; the "Room with the Window in It" (written for the Play
School group) is given as a type for a teacher to write for her
three-year-old group.

I cannot leave the subject of the "familiar" for children without
looking forward a few years. This process of investigating and trying
to cont