STORY ELEMENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF SHORT FAIRY TALES

1. LOVE STORY

A common characteristic to all the collection of free short stories for kids in this online book is to contain love stories or tales, even if it isn’t always apparent at first glance. Love is the context or background that gives cohesion to all the stories, its interpretation and its assimilation; it is even a tool, necessary to understand the baddies.

Children detect if the tales and legends are told or read to them by people or if they are reproduced by other means. They appreciate the effort and they understand that it is not always possible to give them all the desirable time.

Learning, the experiences and feelings of boys and girls when they listen to a tale, they would be more surrounded of that fundamental element which is love if they are in the company of loved ones and they feel at home physically and emotionally. 

2. SHORT BEDTIME STORIES

The brief or short stories about love or with a happy ending for babies and small children are ideal for bedtime in the form of spoken tales, because they put them in a state of relaxation ideal for a nice rest and an adequate functioning of the childlike brain in that state.

It would be good to point out that in spoken tales, above all in bedtime stories, even in the very short ones, often the boy or girl fall asleep before the story is finished. They have fallen asleep in a world of fantasy in which they have probably incorporated new elements to the script.

Another typical characteristic of bedtime stories for kids is the active participation of the boys and girls in the tale of the story. In the spoken tale the unfinished words invite the little boys and girls to finish them. Of course, the participation in the story has to be adjust to the possibilities and wishes of the listener and it is one of the elements of the personalized stories.

The analysis of the effect that the spoken tales and stories have on the children just before they go to sleep is interesting, because it could be totally impressive. For example, rules that have been tried to explain for months, and that don’t manage to stick, can be accepted by a bedtime tale in one night if the message is depersonalized or the active-passive situation of the characters is inverted regarding the rule exposed and its implications.

An important element is that the boys and girls should have the opportunity to choose the spoken tale or bedtime story or, at least, their opinion should always be taken into account.

3. SHORT STORIES FOR KIDS

Even though all the free kids’ tales of this online collection are very brief, the extension of the spoken tale permits us to determine some particular goals. Normally they will be very elemental objectives but sufficient to the boys and girls who will be the listeners.

They are stories for little boys and girls; from 2 to 7 years old approximately, that’s why the style of the spoken tales is very simple on occasions, with very short sentences and quite elemental ideas.

In some cases the stories focus on specific concepts or words in English and even in other languages like Spanish; in others, they are more inclined to establish behaviour or moral guidelines  using the representation of fictional situations with sufficient similarity to real situations.

In other cases, they are simply adventure stories which take the child to a world of fantasy from which they will not wake up from in a while.

4. ORIGINAL STORY

Classic or traditional tales usually have an extraordinary quality, not only literary but also of content. That’s why they’re classic or traditional tales!

Of course every child is a world, but my experience tells me that the most important element is not the technical quality of the personalized or original fairy tale, but the love that it manages to transmit.

I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t tell traditional or classic stories for kids, because a lot of them are really great, but that they can be completed with original fairy tales closer to the boys or girls, making them value and ask for one type or another at bedtime with a spoken tale.

5. PERSONALIZED TALES

Another relevant characteristic is the presentation through these short online stories for children of ideas close to the real life of children and their world, helping them in the development of their evolutionary state, emotional as well as cognitive.

The little ones are grateful for the attention and care that is given to them and they perceive the difference between classic or traditional tales and personalized original fairy tales, albeit vaguely and progressively.

To configure a personalized tale one has to analyze the problem or situation rose in the life of the child, has to have reflected and imagined a plot for the new story; that is to say, a dedication of time and effort of which the children were not conscious.

That is why a healthy recommendation is to adapt something both in the classic stories for kids and in the original fairy tales presented here to the real situation like age, sex, number of siblings and other relevant elements in the childish world that can be easily personalized.

One of the advantages of the personalized tales is that, when we facilitate the auto identification, the messages or morals arrive with a much higher intensity.

The fact that a short story for kids is a personalized tale does not mean that the protagonist has to have the same name as the child who is listening to the spoken tale; it doesn’t even mean that the protagonists have to be children.

Another important element is to not do an explicit personalization contrary to the natural one, that is to say, one has to facilitate that the fantasy of the children complete the identification with total freedom.

6. TRUE STORIES

Normally, the images of the short stories online correspond to the characters or elements of the true stories. The images of the story are photos although on occasions these are altered so that they look like drawings.

In the tales based on true stories it is a good idea to perform the contrary process used on the personalized tales.

Little children feel strong and clever when they understand the messages and the relations between the story and the real world. For that opportunity that they are offered by these stories about life they feel grateful and they have a natural tendency to return the favor by accepting the moral of the story, if it is reasonable, of course.

There is a type of story or tale that I find especially touching, the true stories of the childhood of the person who is telling the story.

They are not only memories of love and special personal situations but they are also, because of the mechanisms of memory, episodes that because of one thing or other represent important elements in the life of a child. Because of this characteristic it is very possible that the tales or stories have a profound effect in the mind of the children.

Another added benefit is that the little one gets to know the person who is telling the story better without personal reference; there is no need to tell him the origin of the story, that way the child has a more objective opinion of it. Furthermore, it is nice to let the child discover it on his own when he’s ready.

7. FABLES OR MORAL TALES

To stimulate the fantasy of children, teach about nature and to avoid a too direct message or moral in stories for kids, one can give them the layout of story fable or tale with talking animals.