The Story Hour: A Book for the Home and the Kindergarten — Story, Setting & Ideas

Nature and Observation in the Stories

Several excerpts focus on natural processes with careful detail. In “Aqua; or, The Water Baby,” the transformation of a water creature is described step by step: “Instead of the soft white bodies they had gone to sleep with, they now had black ones and four gauzy wings.” The narrative follows the creature’s emergence into “the beautiful world of sunshine and flowers.” This attention to metamorphosis aligns with the kindergarten movement’s emphasis on learning through observation, yet the story itself does not explicitly moralize. Similarly, “The Oriole’s Nest” (not excerpted in full) is listed among the contents, suggesting a pattern of nature study embedded in fictional form. The authors appear to trust that accurate description carries its own educational value, without needing to state a lesson.

Historical and Religious Narratives

The collection includes historical pieces such as “Little George Washington” and “The First Thanksgiving Day,” but the most extended excerpt is “The Story of Christmas.” This narrative provides a detailed account of Mary and Joseph’s journey, describing the inn as “a low, flat-roofed, stone building, with no window and only one large door.” The authors explain customs—travel by donkey, sleeping berths in the wall—as if to a child unfamiliar with the setting. The tone is reverent but not preachy: “a baby so wonderful and so beautiful, who grew up to be a man so wise, so good, so patient and sweet.” The story avoids direct moral application, instead letting the historical detail carry the weight. This approach differs from the catalog subject “Conduct of life,” which implies explicit lessons; here, the lesson is implicit in the narrative itself.

The Role of the Storyteller and the Child Audience

The introduction and the stories themselves frequently address the child listener directly. The preface quotes Friedrich Froebel: “Therefore ear and heart open to the genuine story teller, as flowers open to the spring sun.” In “The Story of Christmas,” the narrator says, “Christmas Day, you knew, dear children, is Christ’s day.” This direct address creates a sense of intimacy, as if the story is being told aloud in a circle. The authors also include a story titled “When I Was a Little Girl,” which suggests a personal, retrospective voice. Yet the excerpts do not reveal whether this is autobiographical or fictional. The framing emphasizes the act of telling—the “Person with a Story” who has “a capacious lap”—more than the moral content. This focus on the storyteller’s presence aligns with the book’s subtitle, “A Book for the Home and the Kindergarten,” implying a shared, oral experience rather than solitary reading.

The excerpts show a collection that balances natural history, religious narrative, and domestic scenes, all framed by a concern for the art of storytelling itself. Readers may find that the stories reward attention to descriptive detail and the authors’ deliberate, unhurried pacing. The book’s structure—with an introduction, preface, and varied contents—suggests it was designed for repeated use, perhaps as a resource for parents and teachers. The absence of explicit moral tags in the excerpts invites readers to consider how the stories themselves, rather than appended lessons, convey values through narrative.

That rainy afternoon, the Wiggin and Smith stories filled the room with the hush of attentive listening. I noticed how often the tales circled back to family memory, to the quiet ways traditions shape a child’s world. Afterwards, something nudged me toward Real Folks — Background and Themes, and the afternoon simply lengthened, room by room, into dusk.