Literary voices in interaction in urban storytelling events for children

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Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 37–55

Literary voices in interaction in urbanstorytelling events for children

Marta Casla ∗, David Poveda, Irene Rujas, Isabel CuevasDepartamento Interfacultativo de Psicologıa Evolutiva y de la Educacion, Facultad de Psicologıa,

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Abstract

Telling stories to children has been the focus of much research conducted mostly in schools and families while other settingswhere these practices also take place have been ignored. This article presents an analysis of storytelling events for children in threeurban informal contexts: a library, a park and a children’s bookstore in the city of Madrid (Spain). The study has a multi-methodqualitative design and includes observation, audio and video recordings, documentary materials and interviews. In our analysis,these events are considered as occasions for literature socialization and this paper focuses on exposure to different literary voicesas one aspect of literary language learning. To do so a comprehensive model of different narrative voices displayed by storytellers isproposed. This model is used to uncover differences across the three settings and through a case analysis for each context the typesof interactions children in the audience have with these voices are examined. The discussion centers on the distinct contribution thatparticipating in these settings may make to children’s literacy learning.© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Storytelling; Children’s literature; Literacy; Bookstore; Library; Park; Narrative voice

Literature, both as an oral narration or a printed text in book format, is part of the life of many children. Adults’storytelling, book reading and book sharing to children have been the topic of countless studies. The vast majority ofthese works have focused on families and schools as the sites where these activities take place (e.g. Bus, van IJzendoorn,& Pellegrini, 1995; Van Kleeck, Stahl, & Bauer, 2003). These studies vary widely in their research questions, themethodologies they employ and the problems they pose but, in our view, two common strands can be identified in thisresearch area, especially in works stemming from an educational and/or psycholinguistic tradition.

1. Following an educational research tradition, different reports have identified a discrete number of styles used byteachers (e.g. Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Martinez & Teale, 1993; Teale, 2003) and parents (e.g. Meltzi & Caspe,2005; Reese, Cox, Harte, & McAnally, 2003) when presenting narrative and literary materials to children, whetherorally or through a written text. Adults seem to be internally consistent in terms of the way in which they tell storiesto children—although there are identifiable differences between adults and between cultures. Yet, since childrentend to interact regularly in storytelling events of this kind only with a limited set of adults (i.e. their particularteachers and the specific adults in their family) it seems reasonable to consider that these book reading/storytelling

∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +34 91 497 5215.E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Casla).

0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.linged.2007.11.001


38 M. Casla et al. / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 37–55

events provide occasions for learning in this domain that build on the particularities of the storytelling style madeavailable by the child’s teacher and/or parents.

2. This assumption leads to what can be seen, from a psycholinguistic perspective, as the major rationale for studyingthese episodes: scrutinizing the ‘effects’ of different ways of storytelling by clarifying their contribution to pre-specified linguistic (e.g. vocabulary, comprehension, narrative discourse) or cognitive achievements (e.g. memory,reasoning skills). The applied goal of these works is to identify and promote the ‘best ways’ of presenting storiesto children in terms of their cognitive and linguistic benefits.

However, a major limitation of this logic of “best practice” is that it often ignores that different styles of narrativepresentation are deeply intertwined with particular educational and discursive intentions, cultural beliefs and evenmaterial constraints, among other factors (cf. Carrington & Luke, 2003). That is, the “best practice” approach does nottreat book reading and storytelling episodes fully as speech or literacy events as classically defined in ethnographicresearch (Heath, 1982), as culturally and intentionally organized communicative episodes with linguistic particularitiesthat can only be interpreted taking into consideration this socio-cultural embedding. Following a social approach toliteracy that takes into account multiple sites for literacy practices and multiple paths to literacy learning (Gregory &Williams, 2000), in this paper we want to propose an alternative approach to storytelling events in which instrumentalconcerns are of secondary relevance. Our proposal is to examine storytelling events as organized occasions for social-ization into a literate and literary culture. To do this, we examine spaces outside families and schools where childrenin industrialized societies also have the opportunity to participate in book reading and storytelling sessions with adultsbut under very different organizational conditions.

In large metropolitan areas children have access to a variety of spaces where storytelling events are explicitlyorganized for them. Libraries have a long tradition of organizing regular storytelling and book reading sessions forchildren. Children’s bookstores, as part of their commercial strategy, also organize readings and story sessions forchildren. Increasingly, commercial spaces (such as shopping malls, large department stores or commercial children’splay areas) provide storytelling for children as part of their ‘family entertainment’ schemes. Museums and othercultural institutions program ‘family events’ which often include storytelling as part of these activities. Street artistsand puppeteers also present stories in parks and other public spaces. Obviously, there are differences between thesecontexts (and some of these differences will be discussed in our comparison of the three selected sites of our study: alibrary, a bookstore and a park) but as a whole they show some common traits in contrast to families and schools.

First, schools are compulsory contexts for children and storytelling in a number of families is made a part of theirdaily routines (which may include stress and conflicts; Nichols, 2000), so there may be little negotiation regarding theplace and role of storytelling and book reading in children’s lives or interests. In contrast, it is less likely that parentsarrange to take their children “against their will” to storytelling events in libraries or bookstores; so participation inthese settings may index a much more explicit disposition on the part of families and children to seek out these culturalevents, which are a part of the contemporary social field of literature (Lahire, 2004), as part of their leisure and interests.In other words, by focusing on these events and their surrounding practices and ideologies we may be able to witnessmore directly the cultural capital that is displayed, presented and expected in these community storytelling events.This ‘capital’ is tied to certain conceptions of literacy and literature (Bialostok, 2002; Gregory & Williams, 2000) ascultural artifacts and individual knowledge that has a value in itself but, often, it is also considered important to succeedin other institutional settings such as formal education.

Second, storytelling episodes in these community settings are discursive events that contrast significant ways withstorytelling at home and schools. Given that a part of children’s textual and narrative knowledge unfolds throughinteractions with adults in particular settings, these differences may also result in specific opportunities for literacy andliterary learning.

Table 1 points out some of these differences, which we have attempted to summarize along a number of dimensionsrelated to the interactional organization of these events and the general educational intentions behind them:

(a) At home and school, the “storyteller” (usually a parent or teacher) has a stable relationship with the child in whichmultiple roles and identities unfold. In contrast, the relationship with the library, bookstore or park performer isusually limited to that particular context and the narrative identities that may be displayed in it.

(b) Storytelling at home is often a small and intimate exchange (dyadic between adult and child or slightly largerif there are siblings) where parent and child can monitor and coordinate closely their interactions (Bus, 2002).


M. Casla et al. / Linguistics and Education 19 (2008) 37–55 39

Table 1Some contrasts between storytelling events in different settings

Home School Urban informal settings

Roles of the adult narrator Also parent Also teacher Only storytellerStructure of the interactions Mostly dyadic interactions Homogeneous group interactions Heterogeneous group interactionsStorytelling style and performance Stable parental style Stable teacher style Various performers and stylesBasic rationale for the event Develop a family routine Part of a formal curriculum Literary enjoyment

In classrooms, storytelling is a group event but the shared history between the class and the teacher and the agehomogeneity of the class allows the teacher to pre-adjust her/his expectations and form of presentation. In contrast,storytelling in community contexts is also a group experience but usually with an age-heterogeneous group, variablein size (often unpredictably), that does not have any previous shared history either as a group or in relation to thestoryteller.

(c) Parents and teachers have been characterized as displaying one of a limited set of stable storytelling styles. Inthe case of parents, these styles require intensive training to be modified (cf. Anderson, Anderson, Lynch, &Shapiro, 2003) and are closely tied to their beliefs about literacy development (DeBayshe, Blinder, & Buell, 2000;Serpell, Baker, & Sonnenschein, 2005). In consequence, their offspring and students are repeatedly exposed to thisparticular narrative style. In contrast, in community settings children are exposed to a variety of storytellers andstorytelling styles, which are precisely characterized as personal “trademarks” of the storyteller (Pulido, Morgade,Messina, & Hedlova, in press).

(d) The educational intentions and rationale for storytelling in each context may be multiple and complex, yet in eachsetting they intertwine with each other in such a way that particular aspects of these intentions are highlighted. Athome, book-reading and storytelling, especially in the culturally sanctioned “bedtime story” moment, is embeddedin children’s daily routines and time use schedules (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1988). In schools, storytellingand book reading are connected to broader language arts and literacy curricular goals. In contexts such as thelibraries and bookstores we have investigated the stated goal of these events is to create and promote “consumersof literary resources”, thus the leisure component of the event is made much more explicit.

In light of these differences, it seems reasonable to turn our empirical attention to storytelling in contexts beyondfamilies and classrooms and examine the specific narrative affordances that storytelling in these other settings may havefor children. In this study, we examine storytelling events in urban informal contexts as literature socialization events.Literature socialization can be seen as part of the larger paradigm of language socialization (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2006;Ochs & Schieffelin, 1995; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Language socialization occurs throughout the life cycle and indifferent domains of communicative practice (Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez, 2002). One of these linguistic domainsis literature and, more specifically, children’s literature. In its classic formulation the language socialization programproposes that language plays a dual role in processes of socialization: children are socialized through language andsocialized to language. This dual role fits very well with what, in fact, have been the major uses and preoccupationsregarding children’s literature in the Western world and potentially elsewhere. As stated by Hymes (1996) in relationto the Chinook but with clear cross-cultural applicability:

I think one wants to think, at least in part, of people organizing a great literature addressed officially to children.They are the audience. All sorts of terrible things may happen in the stories, but they are addressed to childrennonetheless. The children, in a sense, are being induced into a world which is ordered, in which experience againand again in the form of a story, at least, has a recurrent, regular, often multi-leveled form (p. 137).

Children have been persistently socialized through oral and written literature, through stories children are exposedto the values, norms, restrictions and patterns of behavior that are expected from them in the community. Traditionally,in Western societies formal educators have taken up this objective as one of the primary reasons to include children’sliterature, either as written texts or oral storytelling, into the curriculum (e.g. Cullinan, 1989). Yet, literary discoursehas specific linguistic patterns and resources that are distinct from daily usages of language and part of the process ofbecoming ‘literate’ involves learning about, identifying and understanding these narrative resources. That is, children arealso socialized to literature and its particular forms of using language and other semiotic tools. A focus on socialization



to literature can pay attention to specific components of literary discourse and examine how they are displayed andtaken up in the storytelling event and appropriated by children (e.g. Poveda, 2003). As suggested by Hymes above, theprivileged spaces for literature socialization are explicitly organized storytelling events. These events can be understoodas speech or communicative events in the traditional sense of the term in the ethnography of communication (Saville-Troike, 1989). More specifically, since in our cultural context these events deal with the presentation and interpretationof material closely tied to print, they may be seen as literacy events (Heath, 1982). Finally, as these literacy eventsdeal with a particular field of literacy (children’s literature) we will consider these storytelling events as representinga particular type of speech/literacy event defined as literary events.

In our research project, we focus on the second aspect of literature socialization (socialization to literature), takingstorytelling sessions in libraries, bookstores and parks as literary events through which children are introduced to theparticularities of literary discourse. Within this larger goal, in this paper we specifically focus on one central aspect ofliterary and narrative discourse: the layering of narrative voices and perspectives. From this first analysis we then turnto the interactional possibilities that each narrative perspective allows between the storyteller on the stage (who alwaysassumes a particular narrative perspective) and children in the audience.

Focusing on narrative voice is relevant for several reasons. First, as stated in classic works from very different fields,narratives contain multiple perspectives which can be articulated differently in discourse (i.e. omniscient narrators,each protagonist’s direct voice, etc. all with different degrees of identification to the “author” of the narrative) (e.g.Bakhtin, 1981; Goffman, 1981). Children’s stories also show this patterning and exploit it as part of their rhetoricalorganization (Engel, 1995; Colomer, 2002). Second, based on our data, we are going to argue that the organizationof these narrative voices varies systematically across the three contexts of our study. This variation is tied to theinstitutional and organizational arrangements of storytelling events in each context. Therefore, it could be arguedthat they provide the attending children with explicit opportunities to be exposed to and disentangle the potentials ofparticular narrative voice configurations (cf. Haworth, 2001). Third, in consequence, by focusing on sequences wherethere is actual interaction and exchange between the storyteller and children, we may be able to examine how thenarrative potentials and challenges of these voices unfold for children.

To develop this analysis, we will apply two categorization systems (described below in more detail). To understandthe different narrative voices that appear in our data and their variation across contexts we propose a performance-basedmodel (Bauman, 1986) of narrative voices which draws heavily on existing literary and sociolinguistic work. However,within this body of research we have not found a comprehensive model that integrates the various narrative voices thatmay unfold in children’s literature and children’s storytelling events. Thus, building and providing a synthetic modelfor this aspect of children’s literary discourse is also a goal of the paper. To examine interaction between storytellersand children (through one of several narrative voices) we apply an established cognitively inspired coding systemused to study storytelling and book reading in classroom settings (Dickinson & Smith, 1994). Undoubtedly there is atension between the general linguistic socialization tradition we build on and this cognitive psycholinguistic approachbut, from our perspective, examining cases from each of the three contexts we have documented with the latter codingsystem serves two important goals: (a) it provides a first entry point to understand storytelling interactional patternsand their affordances - which may later be examined in sequential detail; (b) it helps connect our data with the existingliterature on storytelling and book reading in schools and homes.

1. Method and research settings

1.1. Procedure and participants

The data analyzed in this paper is part of a research project focused on literature socialization in three settings of thecity of Madrid (Spain). The participants involved in our study are the children and adults who attended the storytellingevents we recorded, as well as the storytellers and other institutional agents who worked in these settings. To obtaininformation on the socio-cultural background and daily routines of the families and children who attended these eventsa brief survey was given out and completed at the beginning of each session. For a smaller group of children wegathered photographs of their daily routines and interviewed the children and their parents - data of this last part ofthe project is not presented in this paper but is incorporated in the discussion. Finally, the child of one of the authorsattended all storytelling sessions and was one of the participants in the section centered on daily routines. In this way,more contextualized interpretations as a participant observer can be provided about several parts of the data. Children’s



ages across the three contexts ranged approximately between 1–9 years of age with some differences between settings(see below). All storytellers who participated in the project were later interviewed in depth about their professionalpaths and their storytelling strategies, as was the library director other employees and the bookstore owners in relationto their work and the history and organization of their work settings. We also collected several electronic and paperdocuments from each site, especially the library and the bookstore.

During the first semester of the year 2005 storytelling events in these three sites were video-recorded on the Saturdayand Sunday mornings in which they were organized. We recorded four sessions in each context over several weekends,normally with two videocameras placed behind the audience. Field-notes were also taken during these recordings andalso, as a preparation for the recordings, during the previous months we attended several storytelling sessions whichwe documented through field notes.

1.2. The three storytelling sites

Madrid is a large European capital that has a varied offer of literary events for children: theatres, workshops,children’s festivals or book fairs, etc. Among the most popular and frequent activities are storytelling events, whichare organized in multiple spaces such as libraries, cultural centers and bookstores but also in retail stores, shoppingmalls and commercial child play centers. For our study, we selected three spaces, a public library, a bookstore andpark, where storytelling for children is regularly organized. The three chosen sites were located in the same district ofthe city of Madrid, a central and primarily middle-class residential district.

Our criteria to select the sites were that: (a) storytelling events took place outside school hours at the weekend; (b)formally, accessing these events was free of cost. However, while the settings had to be cost-free we hypothesizedthat they could be organized in a “continuum of accessibility” for families depending on their cultural and economiccapital. The bookstore, as a private commercial space, would be the most “restrictive”, the library as a public culturalinstitution would be a middle case and the park, an open public space, would be the most accessible; (c) in different ways,participant’s in all three setting claim to be playing an active role in Madrid’s “literary-cultural landscape’—while, forexample, storytelling in retail stores is accessory to other commercial interests.

1.2.1. The public libraryThe library organizes storytelling sessions every other Saturday morning at noon for children and families. These

sessions are funded by the regional government, which programs a monthly schedule of storytelling events for allregional public libraries by rotating on a monthly basis a selection of professional storytellers through the differentlibraries of the region. As stated in library documents and during interviews with the library director, the general aim ofthese events is the promotion of literature and libraries as cultural institutions. Storytelling sessions are one of severalprograms designed to promote reading and library use and, among other things, children and families are enticed tomake use of the children’s literature section before and after the storytelling session.

The storytelling event takes place in the library’s auditorium, a large multi-purpose lecture hall with a small stage atthe bottom and several rows of fixed seats looking down at the stage. Most storytelling sessions have a full audience ofover a hundred people and children are invited to sit on the first rows or the floor in front of the stage while parents maysit in the back rows or stand on the side aisles. The librarians in charge of the event, before the session begins, ofteninsist that the events are taking place in a library and remind the children and families to behave accordingly during andafter the performance (i.e. remain mostly silent). In line with this approach, infants and younger children who mightnot be able to sit through the one hour performance are discouraged from attending these sessions—and in general, thelibrary is not well equipped for strollers or the needs of toddlers. Once a month a session is organized in which a signlanguage interpreter is provided and on these dates numerous Deaf children and families of Madrid’s metropolitan areaattend the event. In summary, storytelling in the library takes place in comparatively ‘formal’ climate where children’sbehavior and mobility is restrained and activities are focused on kindergarten-aged children and above.

1.2.2. The children’s bookstoreThe children’s bookstore is located in a small front store in a residential neighborhood. Like other children’s

bookstores in the city it organizes literary sessions for children every Saturday morning. These sessions are announcedweekly through leaflets or the store’s electronic mailing list to which clients can subscribe. The activities programmedfor each Saturday are varied and include storytelling sessions in which authors of children’s literature come to present



their work or tell stories or ‘art and craft’ activities that usually gravitate around particular themes or books. None ofthe performers/organizers of these events are directly remunerated for their activity. Complementing all these events,the print version of the stories which are told or books related to the themes that are discussed that morning are placedin prominent spaces on the storefront and shelves of the store for the day. As explained by the store owners, the generalgoal of the event is to increase the use of literary materials (i.e. increase the number of clients) and children andadults are given ample opportunities to browse through the bookstore before, during and after the storytelling session.Accordingly, our observations and interviews suggest that the store’s commercial activity is highest on these Saturdaymornings.

The sessions are organized on a side of the store that has a blackboard and movable table that can be used fornumerous activities. For the storytelling session children sit on the floor, while adults stand at the back of this area,move around the shop or wait outside. The sessions, which last about an hour, are organized very flexibly and varylargely in attendance (from 3–4 children to 20–25 children) and age range (from early childhood to preadolescence).Children may sit for the event or move around the store or play outside in the small plaza in front of the store andtheir behavior is largely controlled by parents. Infants and younger children are not excluded from the event and, forexample, while we gathered data we saw mothers feed their infant children during the storytelling sessions or thestoryteller hold a baby in her lap while she read a story to the children. Once a month a session is organized in whichsign language interpreters are provided and on these occasions a significant number of Deaf children and families (mostof whom also attend the public library) visit the bookstore. In summary, storytelling in the bookstore is organized inan intimate and flexible setting in which children come into close contact with storytellers and children’s authors.

1.2.3. The public parkRetiro Park is an emblematic space of the city that during the weekends has various street performing artists

(including puppeteers) who attract families and visitors from throughout the metropolitan area. There is no structuredor preprogrammed storytelling schedule but puppet shows performed by street artists are expected to run continuouslythroughout the day in different parts of the park and especially along one of the main walks of the park. The usualroutine for children and families who come to this area of the park is to sit through one show and then continue theirwalk through the park or move on to see the next performer. As puppeteers are placed along the same pedestrian avenueand are visible to each other, they coordinate their activity so they do not run their shows at the same time, thus allowingthe children to go from one show to another. Puppet shows attract mostly smaller children, mainly 2–5 years of age butseveral parents with infants in strollers can also be seen during the performances. The puppet shows are brief, about10–15 min and are preceded by music and announcements that may last for several minutes.

The puppeteers are ‘street artists’ who have as their main source of income voluntary donations that are requestedafter the show, and some of them may also include little raffles of hand-made puppets before the show. In contrastto the library and the bookstore, it is difficult to identify an explicit general goal for these events beyond providingmoments of entertainment for families in their leisure time in informal public spaces or a combination of income andself-expression in the case of puppeteers.

1.3. Selection of storytelling cases, units of analysis and coding system

Below we examine interaction during a case session from each of the settings we studied. From the small pool offour recordings we have from each context we selected one session that met the following conditions: (a) that it wasnot a session in which a sign language interpreter was present—to avoid the potential variability that these cases mayincorporate and because these are specifically analyzed in other parts of the project; (b) that it was not a session inwhich an especially extraordinary event in relation to the usual program took place (e.g. a storytelling marathon, agroup performance, etc.).

As advanced above, for these cases we examine the display and interactional possibilities of different narrativevoices, using two conceptual systems: one based on a narrative voice model we construct and propose in this paper (seeSection 2) and a second applied from the available literature. Additionally, narrative voice and interactional strategiesare crossed with the moment in the storytelling episode in which they unfold: opening, story presentation or closing.Storytelling events are organized around the presentation of one or several fictional narratives, therefore interactionsbetween storyteller and children can be seen as taking place before the story, during the story or after the story (cf.Young, 1982). Therefore, ‘story’ is not the same as ‘performance’ or ‘event’ and, for example, a segment in which the



storyteller presents him/herself and explains what she/he is going to do is part of the performance and narrative eventbut not of the fiction story. To cross interactional strategy with moment in the session we use as a unit of analysis aninteractional episode, which is defined as a sequence where there is an explicit attempt on the part of the storyteller toelicit a verbal or non-verbal response from the children (individually or as a group). This attempt may be successful, andlead to one or several turns around the original initiation, or unsuccessful, and not be followed by children’s reactions.Thus, the length of an episode may range between two turns or several exchanges lasting over a minute—all of whichare bounded by a single topic that identifies the interactional episode.

To code storyteller’s interactional strategies we adapt the system developed by Dickinson and Smith (1994) toexamine book reading in classrooms. They designed the system to describe the cognitive demands placed on childrenwhen interacting with the teacher during book reading sessions. The three categories are: (a) Cognitive challengingtalk, which requires producing inferences, predictions and evaluations on the part of the children; (b) Talk with lowercognitive demands, which requires simple recall, repetitions of rhymes or ‘simple tasks’ such as labeling and, (c) Talkthat serves to manage interaction, which moves out of the fiction narrative and serves to control children’s behavior,organize the storytelling event or take care of other practical matters.

2. A model of narrative voices in informal urban storytelling events

Stories are always told from a particular point of view. This point of view may vary throughout the story but it alwaysestablishes a relationship between the different elements that are part of the story: teller, audience and text. For sometime now ‘voice’ has become a powerful concept that metaphorically draws on this relationship to examine an array ofsocial issues that use any form of narrative discourse as their empirical data. Nevertheless, in more traditionally orientedliterary analysis a focus on voice is seen as a question of identifying ‘who’ is telling the story, and in consequencewhat relationship this ‘who’ has with the narrative plot, what he/she knows about the story and how this relationship iscalibrated for the reader/audience (e.g. Tannen, 1989). Tied to this, in more formal linguistic terms, this voice can bearticulated (orally performed or written) in several ways: through third person narrative, through first person narrative,direct and indirect speech, etc. Literary works vary greatly in the way they formulate and construct these elements,building literary traditions, styles and genres that promote their own set of expectations and, perhaps more importantly,require readers to work out these patterns (Genette, 1980).

Children’s literature presents the same range of possibilities and challenges with some complementary features.As part of the social field of literature it participates in the same transformations that literature as a whole may beexperiencing in any given literary-historical period. However, as Colomer (2002) has pointed out, narrative voice andperspective are elements that are explicitly calibrated in written children’s literature precisely because these texts areaimed at ‘apprentice literary readers’. In this way, children’s books have to find a balance between using configurationsof narrative voices that are accessible to the children who come into contact with the text and providing varied modelsof the multiple possibilities that different configurations of narrative voice have in terms of their literary, aesthetic andrhetorical implications. Oral storytelling, as a way in which contemporary children’s literature is delivered, faces thesame family of challenges which, in this case, unfold within the complexity of artistic narrative performance (Bauman,2004).

The model we propose is designed to organize the layering of voices that can be observed in the settings wehave examined. The proposal draws on established work in sociolinguistics (e.g. Goffman, 1981; Schiffrin, 1996),literary studies (Colomer, 2002; Genette, 1980, 1998) and folklore (Bauman, 1986; Young, 1982, 1984) on these issuesand attempts to render in an accessible language a comprehensive approach the different voices that are availablein the stories produced in the three storytelling settings we have examined. Our notion of narrative voice considerssimultaneously the relationships that are established between storyteller and audience (i.e. participants in the settings)and also between narrator and protagonists of the story (i.e. literary perspectives in the narrative). To achieve this weuse as organizational principles two elements: (a) the symbolic level in which each narrative voice stands; (b) theforms of embedding and relationships voices have with each other, thus producing specific narrative configurations.Our model is empirically derived from the various recordings we have from the three settings we have documented. Itis a performance-based model in which the use of particular narrative voices is seen as part of the storyteller’s creativedesign and decision-making; which potentially takes into account aspects of the setting, the audience and preferredrhetorical effects. Thus, potentially, it could be applied to examine a variety of narrative performances in varioussettings.



Fig. 1. A model of literary voices in children’s storytelling events.

Fig. 1 visually captures our model: a pyramidal organization in which different voices are embedded within eachother and move up to successive levels of symbolization. There are two major symbolic spaces: (I) a physical levelwhere the narrator speaks within the material setting of the storytelling stage – the ‘narrative event’ (Bauman, 1986);(II) a symbolic level, where the voice is articulated within a fiction narrative – the ‘narrated event’ (Bauman, 1986).Each of these spaces opens a set of possibilities that, in practice, are tied to each other.

2.1. Physical level

The physical level is occupied by the storyteller, who stands on the stage and has as his/her task producing literarynarratives for the audience. However, storytellers may come on stage in one of two personas. As a professional sto-ryteller (A1) who introduces him/herself by his ‘real’ name and describes his/her job as “telling stories”. Sometimes,the professional storyteller is the author of the story he/she is presenting (i.e. is introduced as a literary children’sauthor presenting his/her own work) but in other occasions authorship may not be made explicit or claimed forthe story that is being presented. Usually a storyteller who organizes his/her performances within this frame comeson stage wearing ‘everyday clothes’ or, at most, simply a more colorful choice of clothing. One of the most obvi-ous examples of this stance is puppeteers who, after the story, move in front of the puppet theater and request adonation:

Example 1. In Retiro Park, once the puppet story is completed, Jose the puppeteer, wearing street clothes and awireless microphone attached to his head, moves in front of the stage and says:

“Y colorın colorado esta historia ha terminado. Y si les ha gustado voy a pedir una colaboracion para el teatro”(‘Little color red this story is finished. And if you liked it I am going to ask for a donation for the theatre’.)((Colorın colorado . . . ‘Little color red’ is a traditional Spanish story closing))

Then he shows a cloth bag which he opens and a large group of children move up to him to drop coins in the bagwhile he thanks the children as they move away.

Alternatively, the storyteller may appear on stage as a characterized storyteller (A2). Some professional storytellersbuild for themselves one or several fictional characters that they use to appear on stage and organize the performance.This character has a particular identity, plays certain roles with an identifiable physical appearance and allows for certaininteractional possibilities. The characterization frames the whole narrative event from the moment the storyteller appearson stage:



Example 2. Mercedes Carrion appears on the library stage wearing patchwork baggy pants and a vest. She sets atable on the stage, puts a suitcase on it, takes out a musical instrument plays a little melody and then says:

“No era mas que para decir que (. . .) yo soy yo y que me llamo Finita y que ademas como veis por mi-.” ‘this isjust to tell you that (. . .) I am me and that I am called Finita and that as you can see from my-’

She then takes out a long hat from her pocket, throws it in the air, puts it on and continues:

“por mi sombrero soy bruja y soy cuentera” ‘from my hat that I am a witch and I am a storyteller’.

2.2. Symbolic Level

Storytellers present fictional narratives, creating a symbolic level that can be articulated through various narrativevoices. Both the professional storyteller and the characterized narrator can tell the story from the point of view ofa classic narrator (B1), who can access all parts of the story and administers its presentation to the children. Thisknowledge may be construed as coming from first hand experience or from other sources and in either case is typicallyproduced in third person, in the present or past tense, as shown in the following examples from two stories told at thebookstore:

Examples 3. Renuka, the storyteller, is wearing bright striped stockings and a colorful sweater but introduces herselfby her fist name at the beginning of the session. During her performance she tells a combination of several classicchildren’s stories and well known more recently published works. Two fragments of her presentations are:

(1) Oscar es muy sonador, y le encanta inventarse historias (. . .). Y desde que esta en su casa ya se imagina que elcamino es un pentagrama. ‘Oscar is a dreamer and he loves inventing stories (. . .). And from his house he imaginesthat the walking path is a musical score’.

(2) Y le pidio que se casara con el. Ella le dijo que claro que sı, que se querıa casar con el, que tambien se habıaenamorado. ‘And he asked her to marry him. She said of course, that she wanted to marry him, she had also fallenin love’.

In addition, the characterized storyteller, whose presence immediately creates a fictional space, can produce a storyfrom the perspective of a self narrator (B2), speaking in first or third person but reporting events that he/she construesas directly experienced or belonging to the fictional world that is part of the characterized identity. These narrativessequences may become the major stories of the narrative event or may be complementary to the principal stories andunfold at the opening and closing of the session. For example, in the library, a storyteller characterized as Berenjena‘Egg-plant’ opens her presentation with an anecdote about her grandmother—supposedly it is Berenjena’s grandmotherwho is being described (not the performers’):

Example 4. The performer characterized as Egg-plant stands on the stage. To her right, a guitar player accompaniesher commentaries and narrative with musical phrases.

(. . .)Egg-plant: ¿Sabeis lo que le pasa a mi abuela?

‘Do you know what wrong with my grandmother?’Child: Que no puede ver sin las gafas

‘That she can’t see without glasses’Egg-plant: Que no puede ver sin las gafas. (.) Mira estas son las gafas

‘That she can’t see without glasses. Look these are the glasses(. . .)((She then moves to the side of the stage and pulls out of a bag a pair of diving goggles))

The narrative can lead to the protagonists in the story, who may speak directly and be voiced in dialogue by thestorytellers. The classic narrator’s voice does this through direct voice (C1) in which the storyteller performs the speechof different protagonists, transforming momentarily the physical characteristics of his/her speech (speed, volume, pitch,articulation, etc.) to fit with the traits of the protagonist in question. These transformations of paralinguistic elements



are typical of direct voice (via a classic narrator) and are present in all the performers who produce this type of voiceregardless of how much they rely, in general, on vocal modulation as part or their storytelling style—a feature thatcharacteristically varies across storytellers.

Example 5. Pepeperez, a professional storyteller, is telling a version of the Sleeping Beauty in the library. He hasreached the part when the royal family is celebrating a banquet in honor of the birth of her baby.

Entro un hada vieja que llevaba muchos anos fuera del reino y se creıa que se habıa ido a otro lado (. . .) estabamuy enfadada porque no la habıan invitado y entro con un enfado: “¡ahh! ¿que no me invitasteis eh? ¡je-je-je-je!”((higher pitch, with a growling voice and a mean facial expression))‘An old fairy [came into the room] that had been away from the kingdom for many years and it was thought thatshe had gone somewhere else (. . .) she was very angry because they had not invited her and she came in veryangry “ahh! you haven’t invited me uh? ja-ja-ja-ja!”’

However, if the narration stems from the self narrator or the story is not anchored in any of the narrative levelvoices (B1 or B2), the speech of the protagonists is better characterized as an acting protagonist (C2). Here the firstperson predominates and it presents experiences and actions that are directly tied to what is construed as the narrator’spersonal experience. In the case of puppet performances, where this is the principal literary voice, this strategy sustainsthe bulk of the narrative action which unfolding at the very moment it is produced. The following example from thepark puppets illustrates this format:

Example 6. From the puppet stage A wolf puppets appears and speaks to the children sitting on the floor in front ofthe wooden puppet theatre:

Wolf: Pero ¿que ven mis ojos? Ninos y ninas (. . .) ¡que interesante! ¿Como estais? ((lower pitch, growling voice))‘But, what am I seeing? Boys and girls (. . .) how interesting!. How are you?’

Children: ¡Bieeeennn!‘Very weeell!’

Wolf: No os preocupeis que hoy no os comere a ninguno de vosotros, no no no no, porque ¡hoy he decidido comer gallina!‘Don’t worry, today I won’t eat any of you, no no no no, because today I’ve decided I will eat chicken!’

Finally, protagonists’ voices (C1 and C2) may be embedded within each other, which happens when one of theprotagonists in the story takes on the voice of another character in the story for literary reasons that may be varied:imitation, mocking, disguise, etc. Swann (2002) has characterized this phenomenon as embedded representation (D)and has examined it in detail for adult oral storytellers. In the stories we have recorded we do not have examples ofthis embedding but a well known case in children’s literature would be an orally told version of Little Red RidingHood, where at different points of the story the wolf has to disguise himself (and speak) as a little girl and then as agrandmother (e.g. Poveda, 2003).

To summarize, the model identifies different voices which are seen as embedded within each other and progressivelymove up to different levels of symbolization. The relationships between these voices are not random; rather, they areorganized in two broad patterns that produce types of stories where the dominant narrative perspective is different. Afirst pattern, represented in the left side of Fig. 1 (A1–C1), favors the perspective of an external narrator who presentsand controls the full plot of the story. A second pattern, represented in the right side of Fig. 1 (A2–C2), favors theperspective of the protagonist (single or multiple), and the story emerges through dialogue, action or the reporting ofapparent personal experience.

3. Literary voices in three settings: a comparative analysis

Our model provides a comprehensive framework to examine oral storytelling for children in multiple settingsand, theoretically, it does not claim that any particular type of configuration is not possible in any of these settings.However, in practice, for a number of institutional, material and personal preferences, in each of the three settings aparticular pattern is favored. The result is that the library, the bookstore and the puppets in the park provide distinctliterary narratives, allowing the children to come into contact with them extensively, but perhaps exclusively, in thesesettings. Fig. 2 compares the particular realizations of the model for the three settings based on the cases we analyzebelow.



Fig. 2. Narrative patters in three storytelling settings.

The analysis suggests that literary voices are distributed in a patterned way (i.e. they do not show a uniformdistribution across categories). A first interpretation of this finding fits with the articulation of our model (as representedin Fig. 1 above). Literary voices are embedded within each other in particular ways, so the absence of certain voiceswhen others are present is predicted by the model. The institutional arrangements of each setting help explain thispatterning. In the library, as part of their programming policies, there is a preference for narrators who work with anarray of characterizations and can incorporate these characters into other type of activities developed at the libraries(such as workshops, reading clubs, etc.). Further, as explained by some of the performers, narrating through a characterhelps them “fill” the narrative stage and is effective in large auditorium-like performances. Finally, more plainly,competition to enter the (remunerated and stable) ‘library circuit’ pushes storytellers to market themselves by makingtheir narrative events more attractive by including costumes, music, magic or other talents. The result is that at thelibrary, more often, children are exposed to narratives that are told through a characterized narrator and have a muchmore ‘theatrical element’ to them. Consequently, the predominant narrative voice that interacts with the children is thatof the self-narrator (Fig. 1, B2), which is part of this narrative configuration. Also, this push towards sophistication inthe narrative performance may help explain why the library is the context with a larger variety of narrative voices.

In contrast, the bookstore works under very different material conditions which facilitate other types of interactionswith narrators. First, storytellers do not receive any economic compensation for their sessions and the bookstoreorganizes its program drawing on a network of friends, amateur storytellers and the store owners themselves to leadtheir weekly storytelling sessions. More distinctly, the bookstore (in collaboration with publishers) organizes sessionswhere the storyteller is in fact a children’s literature author who participates in the bookstore program as part of aneditorial promotion or a personal commitment with the bookstore owners (one of which is also a children’s literatureauthor herself). In this case, the sessions are clearly led by a professional, who is an author and storyteller, andis presenting his/her own fictional work. From our perspective, both scenarios facilitate the unfolding of the classicnarrator as the predominant voice, either: (a) because it is the most accessible within our literary culture and storytellingtraditions and, thus, is reproduced with ease by non-professional storytellers or; (b) because it allows a clear matchingbetween author-narrator-storyteller. Also, the more intimate arrangement of the bookstore does not require (or evendiscourages) sophisticated theatrical displays to interact with the children and produce and engaging performance.

Finally, the three puppeteers we have interviewed agree on how the narrative structuring of a ‘good’ puppet per-formance should be. What characterizes a puppet performance is that the narrator is absent: stories are sustained onlythrough action and dialogue between puppets and/or the puppets and the children. In fact, from their perspective, atypical ‘mistake’ of beginner puppeteers is to incorporate a ‘third voice’, that does not emanate from any of the puppetson stage, describing what is taking place and what will happen (i.e. is equivalent to an omniscient classic narrator).This strategy results is a particular configuration in which only the ‘bottom element’ of the physical level and the ‘topelement’ of the symbolic level are present. Before and after the puppet story a puppeteer (‘professional storyteller’,Fig. 1, A1) introduces him/herself and interacts with the children and during the story the full plot is sustained solelythrough acting puppets (‘acting protagonists’, Fig. 1, C2).

These configurations make particular voices available in each setting. Interactions with the children necessarily takeplace through one of these voices and if the voices are distinct in each setting, the interactional outcomes may also bedifferent. The final results section examines this question.



Table 2Distribution of interactional strategies in the three settings (percentage and total frequency)

Strategies Settings

Public library Bookstore Public park

Interactional management 5.2% (2) 22.8% (13) 9.5% (2)Lower cognitive demands 23.6% (9) 56.1% (32) 33.3% (7)Cognitively challenging 71% (27) 21% (12) 57.1% (12)

4. Interactive strategies in three contexts: a case analysis

A second analysis refers to the type of interactional strategies that unfold in these settings. Table 2 shows theproportion and distribution of these strategies in each setting

As the table shows, the three strategies we have coded are present in the three settings but they are distributeddifferently. In the library there is a very high proportion of cognitively challenging talk (71%), with some lowercognitive demanding talk and very little talk focused on managing interaction. In the bookstore, just over half theinteractional episodes are classified as lower cognitive demands (about 56%) but there is a visible presence of talkaimed at managing interaction (close to 23%). Finally, in the park the bulk of interactions focus on generating somekind of cognitive demand, with higher cognitive demands being more frequent but in a more balanced proportion inrelation to lower cognitive demands (57% vs. 33%).

Regarding the narrative voice that leads these interactions with the children, in the three cases there is a clearlypredominant voice. In the library, approximately 68% of interactions take place with a ‘self-narrator’ (Fig. 1, B2),although this is the setting where more different voices are present (four in total). In the bookstore, the ‘classicnarrator’ manages over 60% of the interactions in a context where only two narrative voices interact with the children.Finally, in the public park over 50% of the interactions take place directly with the protagonists of this story, definedfor puppet shows as ‘acting protagonist’ (Fig. 1, C2)—for the case of the public park the rest of the interactions takeplace between the puppeteer himself (not the puppet characters) and the children before and after the narrative (as inExample 1).

Focusing on the part of the event in which these strategies are displayed we again find the most frequent strategiesfor each setting take place during the story while other less frequent strategies, such as interactional management talk,take place before and after the story. The significant variation to this pattern happens in the bookstore where, whilethe predominant interactional strategy imposes lower cognitive demands, there is quite an amount of interactionalmanagement talk that takes place during the story.

In must be noted that, in contrast to what Dickinson and Smith (1994) suggest when labeling these strategies, we donot consider the three interactional strategies to be ranked in terms of their developmental-educational desirability orcomplexity. Rather, these strategies seem to be tied to the degree of structuration of each context and, thus, are adjustedto the interactional affordances of each setting. This observation leads to what may be the key finding in terms of thecategories we have put to use: there is potentially an association between the narrative voice used in each context andthe interactional strategies it displays. That is, children in these setting are exposed to specific configurations of literarydiscourses each of which may provide distinct opportunities for learning in this domain. This is better illustrated byexamining particular sequences of interaction in each setting.

4.1. Narrative interactions in the library

The library case is a performance by storyteller Alicia Merino who for this session appears on stage characterizedas Berenjena ‘Egg-plant’. She comes on stage wearing dark pants with an apron, a flower on her waist and a two-piecetop that is a mixture of clown and rural clothing. She is accompanied by a Spanish guitar player who, without a costumeof any type, sits next to her and plays different musical pieces to accompany her narration—either full melodies ormore onomatopoeic musical arrangements. During her story she makes use of several objects such as hats, drawings ormagician’s equipment. Her show is all framed through the Berenjena character that introduces itself at the beginningof the story and, in fact, tells what end up being recognized as several short anecdotes in first person—making it



sometimes difficult to identify the transitions between stories and the before/during/after distinction. The segment inwhich she introduces herself illustrates the display of the narrative voice that results from this characterization. Duringthis sequence she also challenges the children and introduces a number of humorous incongruencies that set the keyof the event.1

Excerpt 1: Berenjena introducing herself (. . .)1 Berenjena: ¡Hola, yo soy Berenjena! ¿que tal?

((breve silencio))2 Nino1: Bien3 Ninos: Bien ((varios ninos/a a la vez))

((la narradora mira a un nino y se dirige hacia el))4 Berenjena: Tu tienes toda la cara de llamarte Pepino

((Risas y comentarios ininteligibles entre la audiencia))5 Berenjena: Pepino eres ¿no? ¡Ah no, perdon! ¡Pepino eres tu!6 Nino2: ¡No!7 Berenjena: Tomate eres tu8 Nino2: No9 Berenjena: ¿No? No importa ¿Pues como os llamais?10 Nino3: Yo Jorge11 Nina: Sandra12 Ninos: ((Varios ninos/as a la vez van diciendo sus nombres))13 Berenjena: ¡Hala!14 Ninos: ((Los/as ninos/as siguen diciendo sus nombres))15 Berenjena: ¡Que nombres mas raros! ¿Como?16 Nino4: XXX17 Berenjena: ¡Ernesto!

((Los/as ninos/as continuan diciendo nombres y ella los repite con mucho ruido de fondo))18 Berenjena: Bonitos pero raros ¿Aquı no hay ninguna Lechuga?19 Ninos: ((Algunos ninos contestan algo ininteligible))20 Berenjena: Ni ningun Tomate, nada21 Nino1: ¡No!

(. . .)(. . .)

1 Egg-plant: Hello, my name is Egg-plant! how are you?((Short silence))

2 Child1: Fine3 Chidren: Fine ((several at a time))

((The narrator looks at a child and talks to him))4 Egg-plant: You look like you’re called Cucumber

((group laughter and comments in the audience))5 Egg-plant: Ah! Cucumber you are, right? Oh no, sorry! You are Cucumber!6 Child2: No!7 Egg-plant: You are Tomato!8 Child2: No!9 Egg-plant: No? It doesn’t matter, so what is your name?10 Child3: I’m Jorge11 Child4: Sandra12 Children: ((Several children shout their names at the same time))13 Egg-plant: Wow!14 Children: ((The children continue shouting their names))15 Egg-plant: What strange names! What?16 Child: XXX17 Egg-plant: Ernesto!

((They go on shouting their names and she repeats them))

1 The transcriptions have been prepared to be as conventional as possible. The symbols we have used are: (()): to indicate comments, XXX: toindicate non-transcribable fragments, (. . .): to indicate deleted text. The translations from the original Spanish are presented as literally as possibleinto English and are not adapted to appear more “stylistic”. Following a one tradition in folklore studies, performer’s names are used when theseare presented to the public. All other participants are made anonymous.



18 Egg-plant: Nice [names], but strange, is there a Lettuce in here?19 Children: ((Some children give different unintelligible answers))20 Egg-plant: a Tomato neither, nothing21 Children: No!

(. . .)

Berenjena introduces herself, establishing the ‘baseline’ narrative voice as a ‘characterized storyteller’ (Fig. 1, A2)and interacts with the children through challenges, which here are somewhat indirect but in other parts of the episodeare much more explicit. These challenges have cognitive implications given that they require children to move beyondcommon associations or build inferences based on incomplete information provided by Berenjena. That is, supposedly,the children have to contemplate associations between particular vegetables (which potentially have several traits suchas texture, color, taste, etc. which could be referred to but are not specified in interaction) and another set of non-specified traits of the children in the audience. These interactions take place in short and fast-paced turns in which bothdirect initiation-responses between Egg plant and the children (e.g. lines 4–11) and non-solicited interventions fromthe children have a place (e.g. lines 12 and 14). These fast-paced short interactions allow the performer to manageinteraction with a large audience.

4.2. Narrative interactions in the bookstore

The children’s bookstore case is a session by Renuka, an amateur storyteller who has performed on previousoccasions in the bookstore. This session takes place in the main section of the store, with the children sitting in frontof the bookshelves instead of the usual side area used for “activities and storytelling”. The event is marked as a specialsince it commemorates the 200th anniversary of H.C. Andersen’s birth (a date that received much media attention andwas the center of several activities within the field of children’s literature). Renuka introduces the meaning of the dateand tells four stories that are either by this author, inspired by his stories or have themes similar to those developedby Andersen (e.g. stories with musical elements). Renuka alternatively stands or sit on a chair in front of the group ofchildren who sit on the floor. During her performance she presents both exclusively oral stories and others she readsfrom a book. She is dressed in colorful clothes (a purple sweater, long boots and striped stockings) but is introducedby her real name and does not portray any particular character.

Her narrative is grounded mainly in the voice of a ‘classical narrator’ (Fig. 1, B1) and the interactions she generatesare similar to the “performance oriented teachers” described in Dickinson and Keebler (1989). Her questions andinitiations to the children take place more frequently before and after the story and a have a stance somewhat similarto a ‘traditional preschool teacher’ (i.e. using known type questions or labeling with a didactic prosody), such as inExcerpt 2:

Excerpt 2: Renuka describing an illustration in a book(. . .)1 Renuka: Hay muchos, hay un zorro, hay un conejo, hay una ardilla2 Nino1: una foca3 Renuka: una nutria, un ratoncito de campo, hay un tejon4 Nina2: ((Intenta repetir algunas palabras))5 Renuka: un buho, hay muchısimos

((Ensena el libro moviendolo en semicırculo, los ninos se estiran para verlo peroenseguida pasa la pagina))(. . .)(. . .)

1 Renuka: There are many, there is a fox, there is a rabbit, there is a squirrel2 Child1: a seal3 Renuka: an otter, a country mouse, a badger4 Child2: ((tries to repeat some of the words))5 Renuka: an owl, there are lots of them

((she moves the book from left to right showing it to the children, some of them ‘stretch’ to try to see the illustration but soonshe turns on the page))



In this segment, Renuka is telling a story from an animal themed book. She moves along the pages and stops todescribe some in the way shown in the fragment. She labels the elements she sees in the page as she shows it to thechildren and later also allows some children to name the animals. The result is that in this configuration, the childreninteract with the physical storyteller rather than with any of the symbolic layers captured in the model and to do sothey only have to display basic cognitive skills.

4.3. Narrative interactions in the park

The public park case is a recording of a morning performance by Jose Fontana, an experienced puppeteer who hasbeen performing in Retiro Park for several years as a street artist. The recording takes place on a cold winter morningin which a large group of children in heavy coats sit on a plastic mat on the floor in front of the puppet theater. Theadults stand around the children and behind the puppet theatre. The theater is a small portable stage about two metershigh covered with bright red cloth with decorations at the top. Jose stands behind the sheet and performs standingup and raising the puppets over the stage. A full performance by the puppeteer takes about 20 min. It begins with asmall skit with rock and roll music and two puppets dancing, then Jose moves in front of the stage and enacts a littleroutine in which he presents himself and sometimes sings a song with the children and then announces that the showis going to start and introduces the story. In this case, the introduction involves a routine in which the children have tohelp wake up the main character. These exchanges that do not involve puppets have been coded as taking place withthe narrator, a voice otherwise absent from puppet shows. Then a single story is performed with puppets (which maytake about ten minutes) and finally Jose moves again to the front of the stage again to ask for donations. After this, thechildren get up and move along the walk and Jose rests for a few minutes and repeats the same cycle throughout theday.

During the puppet performance, interactions with the children are very frequent. The characters in the story areconstantly challenging the children or requesting their collaboration. These interactions can be described as requestinghigher (see below) or lower cognitive demands (e.g. helping one character call another one repeating his/her name)but in both cases they are a vital part of the narrative, since they are instrumental in advancing the story. The followingexcerpt shows how the children follow the instructions set out by Nino (the ‘good character’ of the story) to trick thewolf (the ‘bad character’ of the story):

Excerpt 3 (. . .)((Nino ha estado cavando un hoyo))

1 Nino: ¡Ay que cansancio! ¿creeis que el lobo se caera en este hoyo?2 Ninos: ¡Sııı! ((todos))3 Nino: Entonces, dejare mi pala por aquı

((Se agacha y abandona la pala))y os dire que es lo que teneis que hacer. Escuchad bien. En primer lugar, teneis que llamar a lobo y decirle que le vais a haceruna foto. Pero antes de que se la hagais le teneis que decir que se mueva un poquito, y otro poquito y otro poquito hasta que alfinal se caiga, ¿vale?. Cuando se haya caıdo, avisadme. Yo estare escondido por aquı atras. Ahora, llamadle

4 ((Nino se esconde))5 Ninos: ¡Lobo! ¡Lobo!6 Nino1: ¡Ven!7 Nino2: ¡Una foto!8 ((aparece el lobo))9 Lobo: ¿Que pasa, que pasa?10 Nino3: Te vamos a hacer una foto11 Ninos: XXX12 Nino4: Sı, te vamos a XXX13 Lobo: Oh, una foto, ¡que bien!.14 Ninos: ((Los ninos hablan todos a la vez, no es posible entender exactamente que dicen, pero el lobo comienza a desplazarse hacia un

lado))15 Ninos: ¡Mas!16 Lobo: ¿Aquı?17 Ninos: ¡Mas!18 Lobo: ¿Mas?



19 Ninos: ¡Sı!20 ((El lobo continua desplazandose en la direccion esperada))21 Ninos: ¡Mas!22 ((Finalmente el lobo se ‘cae’))23 ((Aparece Nino))24 Nino: ¿Se ha caıdo el lobo?25 Ninos: ¡Sııııı!

(. . .)(. . .)((Nino has been digging a hole))

1 Nino: Oh I’m so tired! do you think that the wolf will fall in this hole?2 Children: yes!3 Nino: Then I’ll leave my shovel over here

((he bends down and leaves the shovel))and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do. Listen carefully. First of all, you’ll have to call the wolf and tell him that you’re going totake a picture of him. But before you take it, you’ll have to tell him to move a bit, and a bit more and a bit more until he finallyfalls down (into the hole), ok?. When he has fallen in the hole, let me know. I will be hiding over here. Now call him.

4 ((Nino hides))5 Children: Wolf! Wolf!6 Child1: Come here!7 Child2: A picture!8 ((the wolf appears))9 Wolf: What’s the matter, what’s the matter?10 Child3: We’re going to take your picture11 Children: XXX12 Child4: Yes, we’re going to XXX13 Wolf: Oh! a picture, how nice!14 Children: ((The children talk at the same time. it’s impossible to understand exactly what they say, but the wolf begins to move to the side))15 Children: More!16 Wolf: Here?17 Children: More!18 Wolf: More?19 Children: Yes!20 ((The wolf continues moving to the side))21 Children: More!22 ((Finally the wolf falls into the hole))23 ((Nino appears in the stage))24 Nino: Did the wolf fall (into the hole)?25 Children: Yeees!

(. . .)

In this segment, Nino explains what he wants the children to do (line 3) and disappears from the stage. Then, withoutany further support, the children carry out his instructions and trick the wolf. As can be seen, the plot cannot continueand the wolf does not have any particular role without the children’s participation. In this way, children always playan active role in puppet stories. Also, although one or more children may be individually heard (e.g. lines 6, 7, 10and 12), interactionally they are treated as a group. Their collective responses in the direction that has been ‘planned’by the puppeteer, through the puppet characters, are what are incorporated into the story. For example, occasionallythere will be children in the audience who ‘resist’ the script and audibly support and help the ‘bad characters’ tippingthem off about the planned tricks but these interventions are almost never acknowledged by the puppeteer. Finally, incontrast to the other cases, stories articulated through an acting protagonist (Fig. 1, C2), which in our data are exclusiveof puppet shows, take place in the present tense and reflect a form of narrative in which events actually unfold inreal time.

To summarize, each of these contexts seems to provide distinct opportunities to engage with a variety of formsof literary discourse. We have construed these differences as particular configurations of narrative voices and theproduction of these voices seem to allow for particular forms of interaction with the children. As an aggregate theyrepresent informal contexts available in the city that promote literary socialization. In the conclusions we turn to thebroader implications that these findings have.



5. Conclusions

This paper is part of a research project dedicated to examine storytelling events in contexts mostly ignored inthe research literature. As part of this goal we have focused on one aspect of literary discourse aimed at children (i.e.narrative voice) and the interactional possibilities it may offer between storytellers and children in the audience. We alsopropose looking at storytelling to children from a theoretical and methodological tradition that has not been prevalentwithin research on this topic, which has been carried out mostly within educational psychology and psycholinguisticsin families and schools. The results we have presented allow for a number of conclusions.

Building on the model we proposed to understand the different laminations of narrative voices it seems clear thatthe three contexts are different in terms of the organization that they present. Our data to support these differencesis based on four recordings in each contexts and a set of complementary observations previous to these recordings.While it is true that the empirical basis for our model and claims could be stronger, we nevertheless show that thesedifferences are tied to institutional arrangements and preferences that favor the certain form of narrative configurationsthat are not present in the other contexts. To recapitulate, the library has a tendency to hire storytellers who workwith ‘characterizations’, the bookstore organizes sessions with children’s authors and puppet shows in the park followtheir own particular narrative arrangement. These configurations are unique to each context, given the organizers’preferences and the practical constraints of each setting, and lead to specific representations of children’s stories andliterary narrative discourse.

Given these stable arrangements, we hypothesized that they should have different narrative affordances for childrenand that these would be visible, among other things, in the types of interaction the children in the audience have withthe storytellers. In this paper we have attempted to begin exploring this question but, indeed, here our conclusionsare much more tentative. To recapitulate, this is so because: (a) as we explained above, the analysis is based on onecase study and, (b) the closed coding system we have adopted, although it has practical advantages at this point ofresearch, has conceptual limitations. For the cases we have analyzed we have found both differences in the narrativevoices that are displayed and in the interactional formats that unfold through these voices. The differences seem tobe congruent with the institutional arrangements and organizational constraints that we discussed for each setting butcertainly much more empirical data is needed to test these ideas. More data would allow us to explore in much moredetail the sequential unfolding of these interaction patterns and move away from the closed coding system we haveapplied and into a micro-ethnographic form of analysis much more congruent with the theoretical-methodologicalapproach we embrace.

Yet, if we relate our tentative findings with the literature on storytelling styles in classrooms we draw from (Dickinson& Smith, 1994; Martinez & Teale, 1993; Teale, 2003) there are a few relevant observations to be made. Returning toTable 1, our analysis shows that from the perspective of narrative voices, there are a number of discourse formats thatare not found in families and schools. Further, the organizational conditions that allow for these voices in the settingswe have examined are not usually present in classrooms or homes so it is very difficult to conceive how they could berealized by parents or teachers under conventional circumstances. More specifically, the narrative voices that unfoldin the right side of Fig. 1 (‘characterized storyteller’, self narrator’ and ‘acting protagonist’) seem to be exclusive ofthe settings discussed in this paper, which are storytelling events led by storytellers whose main relationship with thechildren is limited to this role.

Related to the above, in the settings of our study, none of the different types of interactional styles used by adultstorytellers (i.e. ‘lower cognitive’, ‘cognitive challenging’ or ‘managerial’) can be said to be inherently more develop-mentally educationally relevant for the children. Rather, these seem to be tied to the organizational and institutionaldemands and preferences of each storytelling setting. Consequently, research should aim at examining the institutional,organizational and ideological underpinnings of storytelling events for children organized by adults. This goal is inher-ent in classic and more recent ethnographic work on storytelling and narrative in community settings (e.g. Heath, 1983;Gregory & Williams, 2000), it has been incorporated into cross-cultural studies of maternal reading styles (Meltzi &Caspe, 2005) but it is noticeably absent in studies of classroom storytelling (cf. Poveda, 2003). Our analysis focusedon organized non-formal storytelling settings in the city and considers a central goal taking into considerations theparticular conditions of each storytelling setting. In any case, given this variety of storytelling settings for children,some general considerations can be made in terms of the potential relationships that may exist between the differentcontexts that configure children’s landscape for literature socialization (i.e. homes, schools, other settings in the city),given that the same children can participate in all or a combination of these settings.



We have examined three informal contexts and focused our analysis on pointing out differences between them. Yet, inthe introduction we grouped these settings under a broad heading (‘informal urban literature socialization events’) andcompared them globally to families and schools. With respect to the forms of literary discourse children are exposed toin the library, the park and the bookstore, each of them provides a specific discourse pattern and, consequently, specificopportunities for learning. Yet, since children participate voluntarily in these settings as part of their family leisuretime, their interrelationship must be seen as exclusively additive. Familiarity with patterns in one context does notinterfere or create incongruencies in terms of children’s expectations or participation in any of the other two settings.Rather, the three work in a synergic way to provide children with a rich array of forms of literary discourse. Further, thedata that we have on the participating families suggest that most of the children attend more than one setting, especiallysince the three are in the same district in which they reside (Poveda et al., 2007).

In contrast, there is an established line of thought (not exempt of criticism, e.g. Carrington & Luke, 2003; Gregory &Williams, 2000) that considers that differences between the storytelling and book reading patterns at home and at schoolmay cause difficulties for children’s successful academic development—and alternatively, postulates that similaritiesbetween contexts facilitates success. These discontinuities are tied to socio-cultural factors and, it is claimed, mayput at a disadvantage families and children who are not familiar with “middle-class mainstream” book reading andstorytelling styles. If this is the case, we could ask what possible role these ‘urban informal literature contexts’ couldplay in providing a type of literacy experiences for children that may have some continuity with school settings andthat may not be available in their family. Posed in these terms, then the broader question is related to the role theseinformal learning settings could play in promoting socio-educational equality (cf. McLaughlin, 2000; Vasquez, 2002).

The unfolding of this potential role would require that the attending children and families were of the type thatis usually defined as ‘at risk’ or ‘disadvantage’ (i.e. lower socio-economic status, ethnic or linguistic minority, etc.).Further, under the current organizational conditions, these families and children would have to attend these eventsvoluntarily under they own initiative, since currently there is not any policy scheme in place aimed at favoring thatthese families become regular users of libraries, children’s bookstores or puppet shows in the park. As we explained inthe method section, we did hypothesize that there would be differences across contexts given that they can be seen asvarying in their accessibility. However, the demographic information we have on children’s socio-cultural backgroundindicates that the families that attend the three settings are, in fact, predominantly middle-class and with relatively highlevels of formal education. In other words, perhaps not unexpectedly, the ideological and cultural dispositions that favorparticipating in these settings are tied to socio-economic and educational factors. The result is that, in practice, thesesettings are being exploited by a much more homogeneous population that they could potentially serve. The middle-class families that attend these settings are able to create literacy and literature rich experiences for themselves wherechildren’s school experiences, family book reading practices and storytelling in informal settings overlap with eachother and potentially reproduce social and educational success and advantage. Alternatively, these informal storytellingsites do not seem to be part of the weekly routines of working-class and ethnic minority children, so their potentialrole in reducing socio-educational disadvantage is not played out (cf. Lareau, 2002).

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments of the previousversion of the paper. Thank also to Joan Swann and Theresa Lillis for their commentaries to our initial presentationsof this work.

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Literary voices in interaction in urban storytelling events for children

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