From: Shpatron at aol.com <Shpatron>
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:39:41 EST

  I found Megan's post extremely moving and am grateful to her for sharing it.
  My own experience with reading as a child involved about eight years during which books seemed irrelevant to me. As we didn't have many books at home, they seemed part of the schoolish side of things: tools for learning, and basically not interesting.
  In third or fourth grade, a public librarian visited the classroom, booktalking Newberys and Newbery Honors. She left a copy of Charlotte's Web with our teacher, who agreed to read it aloud to the class. I went to the library for the first time after school that day and checked out some of the books the librarian had introduced.
  I was stunned. In a powerful way that I'd never experienced, the books sucked me in and affected me profoundly. Charlotte's Web made me decide to become a writer; I wanted some day to try to grab readers' hearts the way that E.B. White had grabbed mine. The library books turned me into an avid reader, literally overnight.
  I'll ever be grateful to that librarian and to that teacher for giving me my life by bringing books into it.
  Susan Patron
 
  In a message dated 2/27/2008 11:12:56 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, lambertmegan at yahoo.com writes:

This thread is near and dear to my heart as a mother of 5 children ages 2-10 and in my work at The Carle. Be forewarned--this is a long post. I'm usually a lurker, but you've inspired me to say something too:

I spend lots of time thinking and writing about reading aloud--and even more time actually doing so. I'm writing a book about this now, tentatively called Page Openings, and as I write it I am struck again and again by the power of sharing pictures and words with children--not only to inspire a love of art in literature in them, but to create a common ground for connection and communication.

We're all preaching to the choir here; I doubt anyone on this list needs to be convinced of the value(s) of reading aloud. But, it's good to know the choir is there as we each continue in this work connecting children with books. I recently heard Vivan Gussin Paley speak on play in the life of the child, and she put out a call for an army of anecdotes about play to counteract the trend toward NCLB, standardized tests, etc. We need to document the power of reading aloud in this way too, I think; studies and data and all the rest pointing to how reading aloud creates strong readers are important, but so too are stories that we can all tell about powerful shared reading experiences. So, I'll close this post (before running off to speak to a Smith College Education class about reading aloud with children) with an anecdote that I'll probably use in my book about reading with one of my daughters:

I am an adoptive mother, and my oldest daughter is also my newest. N. came home to our family with her 22-month old brother S. when she was just shy of her 8th birthday. Although I had three other children, two of whom were also placed with us through the foster system, I?d never adopted a child who wasn? t first with me as an infant. Before N. and S. came home I was admitedly nervous about what it would be like to bond with children who had life history outside of me and my partner and our other kids. But just as reading aloud to my first three babies helped set the stage for attachment, reading aloud with N. and S. provided a first movement toward bonding with them. This was especially true with N. It didn?t much matter what we read. The simple act of curling up with books was enough, as this child who was understandably leery of hugs and kisses and other moments of physical closeness clamored to sit close enough to see pictures well and to read along silently as I read aloud. ?Twas the season, and so we read every Christmas book in our house, and we also began to steadily make our way through fairy tales (she didn?t know many), nursery rhymes (ditto), and countless, countless picture books. One story in particular grabbed N.?s attention: ?The Three Little Pigs.? We read every version in our house and then looked for more in the library. David Wiesner?s Three Pigs was a particular favorite, but she also loved Margot Zemach?s more classic fare, and Barry Moser?s darker version. John Scieszka and Lane Smith?s humor in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs tickled her funny bone, and she loved the shifted perspective offered by Trivias and Oxenbury?s Three Little Wolves. N. didn?t simply enjoy this story through our times of reading together and through her private reading experiences; she also drew pictures of the characters and the houses, acted it out with dolls, blocks and other toys, and staged mini performances with her brothers and sisters. One day, during a routine therapy appointment that was part of her transition into our family, N. began building three houses out of blocks from a basket in the doctor?s office.
?They?re the three pigs? houses,? she announced.
?She loves that story,? I told the therapist.
?Well that makes sense, doesn?t it? It?s all about making a safe home.? I sat there, dumbstruck. Here, made plain before my eyes was the power of story. I sometimes fret about finding good books that explicitly address foster care, adoption, and how love makes a family, and I guess I will always be on the lookout and grateful for books that do this well. But here was an axample of a child finding a story that spoke to her powerfully and subtly. Rest assured, we didn?t make anything more of N.?s play, didn?t ask her to talk about the connections between her life of being sent out into the world by her first mother, of moving from one home to the next, of worrying about her brother?s safety, and of facing too many wolves at too many doors. We just watched her play, and I got to know her a little better that day. Maybe she hasn?t drawn the connections between her life and this story that her therapist and I saw plain as day, and I don?t want to huff and puff them down her throat. I just want to keep giving her stories because I?m convinced that they? re a crucial part of the stuff that will help her as she builds her own.

Megan Lambert Instructor of Children's Literature Programs The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art www.picturebookart.org


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Received on Wed 27 Feb 2008 01:39:41 PM CST