Just about as soon as you were old enough to put words together into sentences, 就在你长大到可以把单词组合成句子的时候，

you probably began to bother your father and mother by saying, “Tell me a story 'bout lions 'n tigers 'n everything.” 你可能就开始用这样的话来烦你的父母:“给我讲一个关于狮子、老虎和一切的故事。”

And when you did this, you were acting just like a grown-up person, because grown-up people like stories as much as boys and girls. 当你这么做的时候，你就像一个成年人一样，因为成年人和男孩女孩一样喜欢故事。

And for thousands of years they have liked them. 几千年来，他们一直很喜欢故事。

Even savage people who cannot read or write have story tellers. 即使是不识字或不会写字的野蛮人也有讲故事的人。

These story tellers are really the books for those people. 这些讲故事的人真的是那些人的书。

When the old story teller dies, a younger man takes his place, and he goes on telling the stories the old man told— 当讲故事的老人去世时，一个年轻人接替了他的位置，他继续讲着老人讲的故事——

stories of the great deeds of his people and of strange things that have happened. 关于他的人民的伟大事迹和发生的奇怪的事情。

Famous stories that have been read in books by millions of people were first told for hundreds of years before they were written. 数以百万计的人在书中读到的著名故事，在它们被写出来之前，首先被讲述了几百年。

No one knows who started them. 没人知道是谁开始的。

But now our story tellers write for us. 但是现在我们的故事讲述者为我们写故事。

They carry us on journeys to far lands where we should love to go, but cannot; 他们把我们带到遥远的地方，我们本想去，但不能去；

they take us through exciting adventures that we should really be a little afraid to go through ourselves; 他们带我们经历令人兴奋的冒险，我们真的应该有点害怕自己经历；

they tell us of interesting things that are happening to other people; 他们告诉我们发生在其他人身上的有趣的事情；

they make us laugh. 他们让我们笑。

Now you are going to read a few stories—just a few—of the hundreds and hundreds that you would surely like. 现在你要读几个故事——只是几个——你肯定会喜欢上的几百个故事中的几个。

There are countless other good stories. 还有无数其他的好故事。

Wouldn't it be fun to read some of these other stories, too, so that you can become a good story teller? 读一些其他的故事不是很有趣吗？这样你就能成为一个很会讲故事的人。