The "story auntie" on the subway — ten years of picture books

Every evening at six thirty, in a carriage on Line 3 of the subway, there is a very special "seat."

A seat, really, is just a small folding stool. Sitting on it is Auntie Wu, the "story auntie," in her fifties, a retired primary school teacher. A plain cloth spread before her holds three or four well-worn picture books, and the children nearby gather around automatically, parents standing at the edge. As the train pulls out, her voice starts up: "Today's story begins with a little duck who couldn't swim..."

Auntie Wu has kept up this "subway story hour" for ten years.

It began after she retired, riding the subway with her grandson. The boy was fussing, so she improvised a story to soothe him — and two or three other children edged over to listen. When it ended, her grandson said, "Grandma, tell one again tomorrow." She did. The next day there were more children. Parents pressed candy into her hands, fruit, notes of thanks. One mother, eyes rimmed red, said: "That hour-long ride was our daily headache — my kid would cry the moment he boarded. You start talking, and he's quiet the whole way."

So Auntie Wu set her schedule: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, evening rush hour, Line 3, rain or shine. At her own expense she bought more than thirty classic picture books, chosen with great care — the short ones for a six-stop ride, the longer ones for the stretch that crosses the river. The stories must "rise and fall, but never frighten a child." She has read each book dozens of times and keeps a timetable in her head of which page to turn at which stop.

Over ten years, the carriage story hour became a habit for many commuting families. One child listened from age two to twelve, graduating from "sitting up front" to "holding the book up from the back row." A parent who changed jobs deliberately takes a detour to stay on Line 3. A child in a wheelchair comes to every session, and Auntie Wu always reserves him the flattest spot at the very front. One parent put it this way: "For ten years, the evenings on this line have been cushioned by stories."

An ordinary subway car, because of one storyteller, became a traveling children's library. However big a city is, there are always people willing to turn their spare time into someone else's fairy tale.

There have been awkward moments, of course. Someone questioned what she was "getting out of it," a conductor came to "have a word," a passenger complained about the noise. Auntie Wu's responses were all simple. She lowered her voice and told stories only to the children who chose to gather. She shifted her little stool to the space between carriages, away from the main commuter crowd. When the conductor came again, she handed him a thank-you letter signed by the parents — and in the end that conductor became a regular, bringing his own child to listen on his days off.

Over ten years her "students" turned over cohort after cohort. One detail moves her most: a little girl who had listened from five to nine suddenly, one day, stopped sitting across from her — she took a seat a little farther off and pulled out a book to read on her own. Auntie Wu didn't call her back. Later the girl handed her a note: "Auntie, I can read by myself now. But every Friday, I still want to hear you tell one."

Auntie Wu is seventy-two now. Young volunteers wanted to take over, and she spent half a year telling stories alongside them, passing the craft down. On handover day she said: "The technique of storytelling isn't hard. What's hard is showing up in every weather. Children won't remember the stories you told. What children remember is that the storyteller was always there."