This is a collection of FREE RHYMING prose bedtime stories, ideal for reading to children. A Canadian author with stories and style deserving attention, Peter W. Collier began with writing free-rhyming prose stories for his own children. His stories are both a delight to read and to hear.
It wasn’t until recently that the e-book format provided a conduit for sharing his quirky free-rhyming story style to a broader international readership. Peter’s Canadian homegrown originality has been well-received, with new myths like the ‘Snow Alligators’, ‘The Immovable Rock’, ‘Lou and Stu’, ‘Three Old Men and Their Teddy’, or ‘The Very Last Apple’ are poised to become creative milestones.
Currently, readers will find 22 stories available in e-book form, some including illustrations, as bedtime reading for children of several age categories. See also this recent post on “With Five Questions”, which features an excerpt from one of Peter’s stories.
http://withfivequestions.blogspot.ca/2013/05/meet-peter-w-collier-author-and.html
My stories are designed for both the reader and the listener.
Children will request parents to re-read, over and over again, a story that has caught their imagination.
If not in rhyme, these stories will quickly become dull and a burden to read.
When written in free verse, a story is both a delight to read and to hear.
The reader feels accomplished when reading my stories and, in the act of story telling, begins exaggerating tone, inflection, and mood.
When constructed in free verse rhyme, while reading along, children quickly begin to retain portions of each story.
Once the child begins reading independently, these stories act as memory assisting templates to guide the beginning reader through their first reading selections. The reading successes of a child will fuel additional comprehension activities and help to jump start reading skills that greatly motivate the young reader.
For the adult reader these stories are always a treat.
I understand the necessity to include a readers interests and needs as part of the story telling activities.
The length of these stories is designed to be between 10 to 15 minutes, to act as a short break or bedtime activity. Unlike Dr. Suess, I have avoided making up new nouns and adjectives for purposes of rhyme, other than some tintinnabulation (words designed to give greater description of sounds), finding that teachers do not appreciate this activity.
I find that by identifying children by full name, as the story characters, it adds a sense of character reality and identity. The children accept the diversity of people, which, in turn, opens the imagination to accepting limitless fictional situations and opportunities.
My stories constitute several conceptual elements to motivate reading and precipitate a positive child’s reading development.
