STORYTIME WITH BRYAN O'BRIEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 57, 26 July 1940, Page 47

STORYTIME WITH BRYAN O'BRIEN

Sunday at 5 O'clock Is a Delight to Young and Old

é BLESSED tale, passport to a confidence so desired, a joy so complete!" " Storytime," with Bryan O’Brien, at 5 o’clock on Sundays is the signal for little ones and grown-ups alike to gather round the fire and prepare for an instructive or adventurous half hour. | Bryan has the art of story-telling. Apart from. giving the listening children much pleasure, he also imparts something which inevitably adds to their knowledge. He gives a wholesome exercise to their emotions, has opened up new windows of the imagination, and added some line or colour to the ideal of life and art, which is always taking shape in the heart of a child. Nature Stories Most Popular Bryan’s nature stories have proved the most popular with listeners, Through his narration of Ernest Thompson Seton’s stories about animals he has engendered the love of animals in children, and through kindness to animals Bryan believes we learn kindness to man. One story he told just a few Sundays ago was " The Badger "- a story with a wonderful moral in it. The child who loved the badger found the badger loved him, and saved him from starvation. They were lifetime

Triends; but when the badger was hated by men he instinctively felt this and hated his enemies in return. Bryan’s Own Opinion When Bryan was asked his opinion on nature stories he replied: "Well, when you begin, ‘ There was once a little furry rabbit’ the child’s curiosity is awakened by the very fact that the rabbit is not a child," Bryan explained, "but something of a different species altogether, ‘Now for something new and adventuresome,’ says his expectation, ‘ We are starting off into a foreign world.’ He listens wide-eyed while you say, ‘ and he lived in a warm, cosy nest, down under the long grass with his mother, his name was Raggylog, and his mother’s name Molly Cottontail.’ And so the tale proceeds," said Bryan, "and the little furry rabbit passes through experiences strange to little boys, yet very like little boys’ adventures in some respects; he is frightened by a snake, comforted by his mummy, taken to a new house under the long grass a long way off, and these are all situations to which

the child has a key. When the child has lived through a day with Raggylog, the latter has ‘begun to seem veritably a little brother of the grass to him. And because he has entered imaginatively into the feelings and fate of a creature different from himself, he has taken his first step out into the wide world of the lives of others. So he learns to respect other people’s wishes, to love his neighbours, and the animals around them."

No one who has ever seen the delight of a real child over a good story can doubt that story-telling is one of the most enchanting of the arts. In the case of a natural storyteller like Bryan O’Brien, it can transport the children into the realms of delight. The most cultured of audiences will listen to the personal reminiscences of an explorer with a different tingle of interest from that which it feels for a scientific lecture on the result of the exploration. The longing for the personal experience is a very human longing, and this instinct or longing is espécially strong in children. He Speaks from Experience Because of Bryan’s experiences when he accompanied Byrd on one of his expeditions to the Antarctic, he is able to relate the most exciting adventures of the snowy regions, He found the dogs full of interest. They were 160 in number and were of various breeds, from the sleek black Siberian*hounds to the huge Manitoba huskies. There were also some dogs nearly all wolf. They had personalities and temperaments as different as those of -human beings. Children will remember Bryan’s stories of the penguins, and how fascinating he found them. "They are the real comedians of the Antarctic, Especially when they played among themselves many of the games beloved of children. It was marvellous to see them playing a combination of leap frog and follow-the-leader in the Bay of Whales; or tobogganing on their tummies and pushing themselves with

their flippers. They go up the steep slope in single file, and never push for places, and play this game for hours," Bryan related. Simple and Sincere The true storyteller brings two qualities to his work, simplicity of language, and sincerity. The reason for the simplicity is obvious, for no one, child or adult, can thoroughly enjoy a story clouded by words which convey no meaning to him. The second quality is less obvious but equally necessary. No absence of fun is intended by the word "sincerity," but it means that Bryan brings to the children an equal interest in what is about to be told; an honest acceptance, for the time being, of the fairies, or the heroes, or the children, or the animals who talk, with whom the tale is concerned, The story he is to tell from Station 2ZB on Sunday next, July 28, is about birds and their struggle for existence. The story is set in England, and is a drama of the wilds, the characters are the hawk, the shrike, the thrush, and the sparrow. Tune in to "Storytime with Bryan O’Brien," on Sunday next at $ p.m.