COUNTYWIDE : Dial-a-Story Links Children to Fiction

Before children ever ran up their parents’ phone bills calling 976 and 900 lines, there were other numbers they could call to hear fairy tales and fables.

The Orange County Public Library’s Dial-a-Story lines have been linking children with a world of fiction and fantasy via telephone lines since 1974.

“It started with two or three English lines and one Spanish line,” said Lynn Eisenhut, coordinator of children’s services for the Orange County Library. “Now we have eight different numbers, with four English and four Spanish numbers.”

The program emphasizes traditional stories and those based on fairy tales, Eisenhut said. Recently, stories have included fables about why the world is the way it is.

“We no longer have parents and village elders sitting and telling stories the way they did in olden days,” she said. “We try to select stories from all cultures and all around the world.”

The stories generally are three to five minutes long and change each Monday, Eisenhut said. The program is aimed at children who might not be old enough or live close enough to visit a library as often as they would like.

“We hope that when they hear the stories, they’ll want to come to the library and get that story or something similar,” Eisenhut said. “Then they can either read it themselves or have their parents or brother or sister read it to them.”

Each story tape ends with a line telling the listener that if he liked the story, he can come to the library to find others.

The tapes are made by students at Cal State Fullerton in a class on oral interpretation of children’s literature. Since the early 1980s, Allen Zeltzer, professor emeritus, has had students gain experience by reading to children at the university preschool and by making tapes.

“It’s a library project, and we’re merely the ones who bring it to life,” he said.

The library logged 125,000 calls to its Dial-a-Story lines last year, Eisenhut said.

The lines are:

English language:

Central Orange County: (714) 832-3622

North Orange County: (714) 871-9793

South Orange County: (714) 493-3511

West Orange County Seal Beach: (213) 598-6607

Spanish language:

Central Orange County: (714) 832-1933

North Orange County: (714) 871-6790

South Orange County: (714) 496-4951

West Orange County Seal Beach: (213) 596-2709