A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

一般来说，孩子如果对某个故事感兴趣，他喜欢让父母用同样的词语重复讲给他听，但这并不意味着父母要像朗读课文一样重复读故事书上的文字。讲故事总是比从故事书上读故事要好得多，如果父母能针对实际的环境和孩子的个性来创造性地讲故事，要比从书上读故事的效果好得多。