World Tales for Family Storytelling II: 44 Traditional Stories for Children Aged 6-8 Years

These wonderful world tales are from oral traditions from a variety of historical, cultural and world sources.

Oral storytelling at home builds children’s confidence in their unique voices and these stories are short and quick to learn. They may be read, told and retold and then explored within the family. The tales offer a rich vein of world heritage, giving your family a doorway into the wonderful world of traditional storytelling.

Gathered here are retellings of traditional tales, told in the voice of a storyteller and perfect for 6-8 year olds. They are short, simple and quick to learn. Parents can read and tell the stories, so children can then tell them themselves. This is not just a handy and fun activity for bedtimes, family occasions, car journeys and parties: oral storytelling in the home builds children’s confidence in their unique voices. It helps them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them, and to speak so that others will listen.

These world tales are all selected from the highly acclaimed 147 Traditional Stories for Primary School Children to Retell, a reference book used by teachers around the globe. In 2020/21 during COVID lockdown, more than four million online lessons were downloaded which used these stories as the starting point for learning language, communication and creativity.

＂Most precious of all was the bedtime story...being taken to the brink of sleep by just the right story.＂ --Jamila Gavin, from the Foreword

Chris Smith, PhD, is a storyteller, educational trainer and founding Director of Storytelling Schools. Chris loves helping to make education more joyful, effective and engaging, especially in areas of social deprivation where good education can make such a difference to future life chances. For the last twenty years Chris has been researching and developing the Storytelling Schools idea in UK schools. Chris has also been a father, musician, performer, monk, UN manager, human ecologist and writer. He currently divides his time between a home in Gloucestershire and a wood in Devon.