Stories which have animals as central characters, or in which animals take on human characteristics have always been loved by children. Be it the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams or the animals from The Jungle book, children are invariably drawn to them.
Animal stories are much loved in our Libraries in School (LiS) classrooms. Recently, I had the experience of doing Read Alouds centered on animals, and each one got a different response from the children.
The first one was the humorous ‘The Great Goat Chase’. Animal charades and The Old Macdonald song were embedded into the Pre-Story discussion, so the children immediately guessed that animals will be in the story. We used soft toys and puppets while doing the Read Aloud, and whenever an animal character made an appearance in the story, the soft toy or puppet would be brought out from a bag. The children gave us their complete attention for the story. Though the story tells about how different animals try to chase the goats that are gobbling up their farmer’s rich produce, it also has the subtle theme of believing in your abilities. The children understood this beautifully, without me having to do much explanation. Amruta from Shri Saraswati Vidhyalay, standard 4, felt that the book was about self-confidence and how intelligence can be used to get the work done.
The second book that I really enjoyed reading aloud was ‘The Tiger-Skin Rug’. The beautiful illustrations by Gerald Rose captivated the children and allowed them to predict correctly what will happen in the story. Through this story we were able to touch upon the theme of old age, and the children enunciated how important their grandparents are to them. At the end of the story, they agreed that it was mutually beneficial for the old Tiger and the Rajah to live together in the palace.
The surprise ending of ‘The Perfect Pet’ astonished the children. Some of them could not believe that the story had ended and were asking for more. Through this story, I could open up the concept of the food chain, and have a discussion about the actions of the main character.
The most emotional reaction to any story I have ever done was for ‘Mother is Mother’. The story gave me scope to talk about character development, and events in the story that shape the main character’s action. But what made the story so special was that the children shared their close personal experiences, something I had never seen before in a classroom.
The magic that these animal stories brought to our library sessions is ethereal, hard to capture in words, but will remain with me for a long time.