I would second this book recommendation, and also two other books:
Katherine Nelson's edited book "Narratives from the Crib" (1989)
and Brian Sutton-Smith's "The Folkstories of Children" (1981).

I edited a special issue of "Current Psychology of Cognition/
Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive" in 1998, dedicated to "Language
Play in Children", and a few of the papers in that issue might
be of interest.

Ann




In message <46EA402A.1080903@chello.nl> Akke de Blauw <a.deblauw@chello.nl> writes:
> dear Magdalena
> 
> I would suggest the methodology of the classic study of narratives: 
> C.Peterson and A. McCabe (1983) 'Developmental Psycholinguistics; Three 
> Ways of Looking at a Child's Narrative'. They elicited narratives by 
> giving prompts, telling own experiences first, than asking theirs.
> 
> best regards
> 
> Akke de Blauw
> 
> A.T.deBlauw@uva.nl
> University of Amsterdam
> Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication
> Project Precursors of Narrative Ability
> 
> 
> masmo@lingua.filg.uj.edu.pl schreef:
> > Dear Colleagues,
> > I would appreciate some advice as to what question to ask 5 yr-old children 
> > in order to elicit some narratives on their personal experiences. I would like to 
> > obtain some data in the form of monologue, and I would prefer it to be related 
> > to some real past events in the child's life rather than being based on general 
> > world knowledge or describing habitual situations.
> > I would also appreciate some literature related to this methodology.
> > Magdalena Smoczynska
> > Krakow, Poland. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 

