When I first told the story of the mahogany door to a group of kids some four years ago, it was hard to keep pace with them. With so many young children, many interruptions took place. It would be nice to tell a long story to a group of children without them fidgeting and squirming about, but that doesn’t happen in the real world. In the real world, children will make outbursts at inappropriate times.
With Brandy, my grandson, and a few others in the great hall by a roaring fire with snow floating to the ground and a bite in the air, we had no problematic eruption from anxious children. I remembered that Brandy had been one of the attentive listeners back then, just as she was now.