From the Library: For reading out loud

When I became a children’s librarian in New Hampshire I bought a vanity license plate that shouted out my passion and profession: READ2U. It was a great advertisement for my calling in life and I warmly smiled when fellow drivers gave me a thumbs up, mouthing “love your plate!” The only bad thing was that everyone knew when the children’s librarian tooled around town a few miles over the speed limit. Road rage was never part of my personality but you’d better be extra careful when your car is easily recognizable. (The cool convertible feature didn’t help me much, either.)

I never parked in my garage but left my car in a cozy spot next to my home. My very visible home sat exactly one-eighth mile up Main Street from the lovely Peterborough Town Library where I worked. One day I answered a knock on my front door. I was pleasantly surprised when a woman said this: “I noticed your license plate. Are you a professional reader? Is that what you do – read to people?” I had to chuckle because that was exactly what I did. To little people. And some bigger ones under the age of about 12.

What my visitor had hoped to find was someone to read to her mother. A former school teacher living in a local retirement home, her mother could no longer see to read comfortably. She didn’t exactly like the books on tape her daughter had been bringing to her. What she yearned for was for some to read to her … in person and from books that she had enjoyed as a child.

From that conversation something special was born. I began a program of reading to elderly adults in three retirement communities which continued for several years. We laughed over Toad’s antics in “The Wind in the Willows”, my audience gasped (and sometimes snored) at Harry Potter’s magic, we all chuckled while Lemony Snicket punned his way through his “Series of Unfortunate Events” and all the ladies in Assisted Living giggled once again when Anne of Green Gables’ carrot-top turned green.

Reading aloud has become somewhat of a lost art in our culture and in the 21st Century. Before television and radio, and mercy me! computers, families spent valuable time reading to each other. And not just to children. Rhythms and language, descriptions and visions were shared with utmost attention to the written word by entire families of all ages. The Read Aloud America and United Through Reading groups are two of the non-profit organizations encouraging a rebirth of a read-aloud generation.

Most experts agree that reading to children is the single most important factor in later reading success.

As adults, we know the importance of reading to our children. We stop – or our children stop us – at some point in the chain. We rarely read to them after a certain age and certainly not to each other. While the electronic audio books serve its purpose well, listening to audio books in any format is a solitary activity. Too much of our present-day e-World is convenient but lonely as it lacks the connectness and comfort we find in the shared experience of listening and reading to each other. There is something lost in the translation – the attention we must pay to read and to listen.

In the Middle Eastern book of folk tales, “Arabian Nights”, Scheherazade reads to her husband, the king, each night for one thousand and one nights. The King, enchanted, forgets all about his anger and never calls back the executioner. Scheharazade found a clever way to save her own life simply by reading and reading to one who listened and listened.

Slowly, the listeners in the retirement homes I visited in Peterborough, New Hampshire fell asleep more often during the Muggles’ Quidditch games at Hogwart’s or they left for hospital stays or were too tired to come down from their rooms. After a few years of reading at the retirement homes I found myself staying at the library and attending to the children of all ages who needed me there.

One of my very favorite memories is reading Dickens' “A Christmas Carol" together with my elderly listeners during the month of December. I ambitiously read the 28,000 words in four sittings, by a warm fire with a rapt audience. It had been years since my listeners had heard Ebeneezer Scrooge’s rude voice or smiled at Tiny Tim’s joy.

Try reading out loud this week. Whether it is a funny excerpt from the news, a paragraph or two from a book, or a whole story. Visit our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org or call 781-769-0200. We look forward to seeing you in the library.