A programme for children under five
Nursery rhymes, stories, and music
Stories for very small children are rarely to be found printed in books, for their books are usually picture books, and their stories those that mother makes up as she goes along, and in preparing our stories tor these programmes we have had to do likewise, and have them specially made. But perhaps you will ask, what about the favourite fairy-tales, ' Red-Riding-Hood,' for example, and ' The Three Bears '? Well, those, we feel, are your material, not ours; they are the traditional heritage of children which should come to them first direct from their mother's lips as and when they are ready for them. Moreover, little children are easily frightened, and the radio has an astonishing power of exaggeration. The four-year-old girl who screamed with terror when she heard Snow White crying out to the huntsman not to kill her, would have felt no fear had her mother been telling the story.
So we at the radio end must go carefully in our choice of stories, and it is on you that we must rely to notice what your children dislike or enjoy, what makes them laugh and what makes them afraid, and to write and tell us about it.
Elizabeth Taylor