The experiences of one child's storytelling events over a period of nine months were tape recorded in a study that examined which variables were the most important in the child's learning of narrative. The variables considered took into account the impact of different storytellers, different story genres, different interactions (kinds of parental and child response), the impact of the child's age (23 months), the length of the session, and the child's familiarity with the genre. Extensive analyses of the factor and contextual variables produced 12 clusters of adult-child behaviors, of which seven were dominated by the effects of genre, four by variables specific to the child, and two by parent-child interaction patterns. Of significance was that each of the adults (mother, father, and teacher) had a different impact on the style of the storytelling sessions. The father tended to be more authoritarian and yet allowed for a more emotional response. The mother was more progressively educative and yet required a more sober relationship. The teacher was a mixture of the mother's educative approach and the father's allowance for nonsense. Each of the genres themselves also created a different impact. The child was relatively more playful with stories (reading and telling and picture books) than with personal narratives, and had more fun in cotelling stories than in being told stories. There were also changes over time, with the child's emotionality and spontaneity of responses decreasing with age. (HOD)