Finding my voice (Week 15)
"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
Thanks for the great advice, P.J. O'Rourke! I think it's fair to say I followed that rule all week, with an added twist. I spent at least half an hour every night reading aloud. Sometimes in a silly voice. Sometimes until I knew from the evidence that my audience had drifted off to sleep.
But why aloud when there are no children in the room? There are already so many great reasons for reading aloud to your kids. Now research into reading aloud is suggesting that we should keep on doing it long after the child-rearing years are behind us. The number one reason is memory improvement, which might even delay the onset of Alzheimer's. I'm all for that!
We used to read to our kids all the time. My favourite was Winnie the Pooh, which gave me a chance to try out all my Disney voices. I flatter myself that my Eeyore is spot-on. But it's been at least 10 years since our youngest, Holly, heard her old man sending her off to slumberland to the sound of Eeyore building his new house.
When I decided to read aloud every night for a week, I knew my opening delivery would be the good ol' Pooh book. Even Val seemed to appreciate the familiar stories of Pooh being attacked by bees and getting wedged into a very tight spot. And there's just something about Milne's style that leads you naturally from one word to the next without having to concentrate a whole lot. It's simply delightful.
On Night 2, I pulled out a little surprise — Woody Allen's Side Effects. It's completely absurd and ridiculous and maybe a little too introspective and smarty pants for a bedtime read-aloud. I struggled, but I guess that's part of the exercise too. Being a fast talker, reading aloud forces me to slow down and think about each syllable.
Next up was the supreme master of simple language, Ernest Hemingway, and his Pulitzer Prize winning The Old Man and The Sea. This time, I was trying to read so that I almost paused on each word. Now, that really does improve the memory. I think what I lost out on, though, was capturing the essence of the old man's heart-breaking tale of triumph and loss. I kept at it for another night, and gradually got the hang of adding a touch more emotion to the words I reading aloud.
Finally, I found the perfect book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And by perfect, I mean it had the ideal combination of voice acting (who can resist the opportunity to do a southern accent?), comedy that I think left Woody in the dust, and beautiful simplicity of both language and story. Of course, my bedroom is likely the only place on the planet I can read Huck Finn aloud, what with all the controversy that's surrounded it over the years.
Best of all, I think, was that I didn't set a nightly time limit on Huck Finn. I read until Val fell asleep, and that happened every time. It's not that the story is uninteresting — it's that when you read it aloud it has the perfect cadence to match a person's sleep pattern. I think now I could read anybody to sleep if given a copy of Huck Finn. And yes, that includes you!
"You don't know me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...'" There, I think I saw your eyes blink.
NEXT WEEK: Trying the keto diet for 7 days!
Thanks for the great advice, P.J. O'Rourke! I think it's fair to say I followed that rule all week, with an added twist. I spent at least half an hour every night reading aloud. Sometimes in a silly voice. Sometimes until I knew from the evidence that my audience had drifted off to sleep.
But why aloud when there are no children in the room? There are already so many great reasons for reading aloud to your kids. Now research into reading aloud is suggesting that we should keep on doing it long after the child-rearing years are behind us. The number one reason is memory improvement, which might even delay the onset of Alzheimer's. I'm all for that!
We used to read to our kids all the time. My favourite was Winnie the Pooh, which gave me a chance to try out all my Disney voices. I flatter myself that my Eeyore is spot-on. But it's been at least 10 years since our youngest, Holly, heard her old man sending her off to slumberland to the sound of Eeyore building his new house.
When I decided to read aloud every night for a week, I knew my opening delivery would be the good ol' Pooh book. Even Val seemed to appreciate the familiar stories of Pooh being attacked by bees and getting wedged into a very tight spot. And there's just something about Milne's style that leads you naturally from one word to the next without having to concentrate a whole lot. It's simply delightful.
On Night 2, I pulled out a little surprise — Woody Allen's Side Effects. It's completely absurd and ridiculous and maybe a little too introspective and smarty pants for a bedtime read-aloud. I struggled, but I guess that's part of the exercise too. Being a fast talker, reading aloud forces me to slow down and think about each syllable.
Next up was the supreme master of simple language, Ernest Hemingway, and his Pulitzer Prize winning The Old Man and The Sea. This time, I was trying to read so that I almost paused on each word. Now, that really does improve the memory. I think what I lost out on, though, was capturing the essence of the old man's heart-breaking tale of triumph and loss. I kept at it for another night, and gradually got the hang of adding a touch more emotion to the words I reading aloud.
Finally, I found the perfect book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And by perfect, I mean it had the ideal combination of voice acting (who can resist the opportunity to do a southern accent?), comedy that I think left Woody in the dust, and beautiful simplicity of both language and story. Of course, my bedroom is likely the only place on the planet I can read Huck Finn aloud, what with all the controversy that's surrounded it over the years.
Best of all, I think, was that I didn't set a nightly time limit on Huck Finn. I read until Val fell asleep, and that happened every time. It's not that the story is uninteresting — it's that when you read it aloud it has the perfect cadence to match a person's sleep pattern. I think now I could read anybody to sleep if given a copy of Huck Finn. And yes, that includes you!
"You don't know me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...'" There, I think I saw your eyes blink.
NEXT WEEK: Trying the keto diet for 7 days!
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