Don’t settle just for the obvious when you read the title of this post. February 1 is Read Aloud Day, and I’m giving you a bit of advance warning so you can be ready. The obvious solution of finding a preschooler is fine and is a lot of fun. That would be a good way to celebrate, but if you don’t have one of those close by, don’t let that stop you.
In an “if I knew then what I know now” instance in my life, I would not have stopped reading aloud to my oldest son when he learned to read. I did better with the younger two, reading aloud until they completely lost interest – the last one in junior high. In fact, in that last book we read together, Mark taught me something I used later with my students when I moved to that same school to teach. We read A Tale of Two Cities, and he decided to keep a list in his notebook of the multitude of Dickens’ characters. When old Jerry who seems in chapter fourteen, Book the Second, to be nothing more than a colorful character who robs graves to sell to the medical profession turns up again in chapter eight, Book the Third, Mark’s notes verified that Jerry had good reason to know that the spy Roger Cly had escaped his own burial. I learned from him to keep a running list of characters with my students when I read aloud for writers like Dickens who put enough people in their books to populate a small country.
Moving on up in age, I think about the annual parish spring teachers’ meetings with required attendance where those in charge spent a chunk of money to bring in an inspirational or entertaining speaker. Most fell far short of their cost and I, now that I assume the statute of limitations has run out, admit that the occasions often gave me a refreshing nap to begin my spring holiday. That did not happen the year the speaker came prepared to read aloud to us. One never gets too old to enjoy a well-read story.
And what if you are alone and can’t find an agreeable listener? Be my guest and read a poem, a story, an essay aloud to yourself. You deserve some pleasure in your life.