Reading at the CNIB

Ordinarily during a recording session, there is one narrator, seated, reading a book aloud inside the booth. Outside the booth, there is ordinarily one technician, monitoring the reader for accuracy and operating the computer to help ensure that a smooth recording of the book is produced. It is highly unusual to have two readers in the recording booth at the same time. But in my last session of 2010, there was a reason Alex and I were in there together.

But every so often throughout the book were passages that were dialogue only, with no narrative or speaker attributes, between Amelia and one of the male narrators. (It would be a spoiler if I were to say which one.) And so it was arranged for Alex and me to overlap at the studio so that we could record, together, those passages.

I’ve spent some pretty satisfying hours at the CNIB Recording Studio, as both reader inside the booth and as technician outside the booth, but I must say that being involved in making this beautifully written story accessible to visually impaired readers has been one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had there.
Btw, you can see that one picture is of me and Alex reading a passage of dialogue. In another, we are listening to a passage Blair is playing back for us, to make sure we’re happy with how it has come out. What you see reflected in the glass are the shelves of books other volunteers are currently working on.
I hope the CNIB clients who borrow the talking book from the CNIB Library will be as pleased with Ragged Company as Alex and I were when we read it.
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.

Does the CNIB need volunteers to read for them? How would someone go about finding this information?
I don’t know whether the CNIB is currently looking for more volunteer readers, Dorothy. There is a “volunteer” section of the CNIB website. If you don’t find an answer there, please let me know.