For Families

Everything here is written to be read out loud, by somebody who has had a long day and has not read it before.

If you have five minutes tonight

One story for each age, chosen as the best first taste: The Hollow Drum for ages 3–5, The Balance and the Boy for ages 6–8, The Crab Who Looked Down for ages 9–12. Or see Start Here.

The note at the top of each story

At the top of every story there is a folded note marked Reading aloud? A note for you. Tap it open and it tells you which sounds the children join in on and when to pause for them, and where you can stop early if your little one is fading. Where a story has real danger in it, the story page says so plainly before you begin.

The line at the very bottom, marked for the grown-up, says what the story is really about — there in case a child asks you afterwards and you would like a moment’s head start. Neither is meant to be read aloud.

Why the ages are kept apart

A story written for a nine-year-old will lose a three-year-old in the first minute, and a story written for a three-year-old will bore a nine-year-old just as fast. So every story is written for one age, says which, and stays there. The three shelves are ages 3–5, ages 6–8 and ages 9–12, and nothing on a shelf is written for another age.

Frightening things

Some of these tales are old, and some have hunters and snares and nets in them. We do not take those out — a story with nothing at stake teaches nothing. But we do three things with them, every time.

• The worry is felt fully before anyone is reassured. A child who is told “don’t worry” first has been taught that their worry was silly.
• One of the children under the tree says the frightened thing out loud, so your listener is not the only one who felt it — and Nani answers them, which means she has answered your child too.
• Nothing for ages 3–5 frightens at all. That is the floor, and it does not move.

How a story ends

Each story simply ends where the old tale ends — there is no moral tacked on and no question from Nani. The children under the tree react the way children do: they laugh, or argue, or go quiet, and then the story is over. The one line at the foot of the page, marked for the grown-up, is written for you, not for reading aloud, so any talking afterwards belongs to your family, not to the page. If you want one question that works for every story, try asking, “what would you have done?”

The three under the tree

Every story is told to the same three children — Mira, Leo and Dev — and their grandmother, Nani. Their pages say who each of them is, with three evenings apiece; the stories themselves live on the age shelves.

Where the stories come from

Banyan tells the folk tales of the world, starting from India. Our first collection is the Panchatantra, a collection of Indian animal fables around two thousand years old; from there we follow the old stories outward, to the traditions and places that have taught children through stories for generations, each collection named for where it comes from. Every story names the tale it is retold from, and what we changed. A story of our own, shaped freely in the spirit of the old ones, will say that instead. We would rather claim less than we can prove.