Summer Reading, Reading Aloud
I love to read aloud. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been a volunteer at the CNIB for 15 years now. I’ve recently completed narrating my 50th book there (Beholden by Lesley Crewe).
It’s called narrating because it’s not always a matter of simply reading the words on the page, clearly and accurately with no extraneous noise that might distract. For The Outside Circle, a graphic novel by Patti Laboucane Benson (Book #37), and The Word Collector and A Family Is a Family Is a Family, picture books by Peter H. Reynolds and Sara O’Leary respectively (Books #45 & 42), it’s necessary also to write scripts that captured what sighted readers of the books would be enjoying visually.
I was introduced, gratefully, to the writing of Richard Wagamese through my work at CNIB (as the female-narrator parts of Ragged Company (Book #20).) I’ve had the privilege of reading other greats, too, like Donna Morrissey’s The Fortunate Brother (Book #39) and Kevin Paterson’s Consumption (Book #12). My favourite novel for kids was Someday Angeline by Louis Sachar (Book #8). I’ve also read non-fiction for kids and adults, mysteries, cookbooks, romance, poetry, and even a couple of my own books — Becoming Ruby (Book #4) and Highway of Heroes (Book #27).
I’ll look forward to choosing my 51st book (a volunteer is usually offered a few to choose from) when I return to CNIB after the summer. In the meantime, I get to indulge my love of reading aloud while my partner and I are on the road. Listening to audio books while driving tends to put me to sleep. Fortunately Peter is not similarly afflicted. This summer we’ll be continuing to make our way through From Ink Lake: Canadian Stories Selected by Michael Ondaatje.
If you’re not yet tired of me rambling on here, this isn’t my first blog post about my reading aloud habits.
Do you have a book you’d recommend for reading aloud or to myself this summer? Let me know! I’d love to add to it my “Want To Read” shelf on Goodreads. (Goodreads is how I knew the numbers to attach to those CNIB reads.)
Wishing you all many hours of reading pleasure this summer. See you in the fall!
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Kathy Stinson is the author of the classic Red Is Best and the award-winning The Man with the Violin. Her wide range of titles includes picture books, non-fiction, young adult fiction, historical fiction, horror, biography, series books, and short stories. She has met with her readers in every province and territory of Canada, in the United States, Britain, Liberia, and Korea. She lives in a small town in Ontario.
