A Book Recommendation for Kids AND Writers
When I told friend and fellow writer Jean Little I was thinking of auditioning to read for the CNIB, she said, “Well, they don’t take just anybody you know.” It’s true! But they took me. This month I read Book #45 on my list of those I’ve narrated since passing my audition in 2004.
Narrating The Word Collector by Peter Reynolds, it was important to convey to young readers with print disabilities a sense of the illustrations that help tell the story, without disrupting the flow of the text. It was fun to work out how to do that, with help from a CNIB staff member, and of course to narrate the book.
When I read the book aloud to my 5-year-old grandson, he insisted I read every word on every slip of paper in the illustrations. (He quickly learned to read TREASURE and SHIMMER himself.) And of course I did that in the Recording Studio too.
At the end of The Word Collector, Jerome takes his enormous collection of words and disperses them into the wind. Other kids eagerly gather them up. The last sentence (except for a final note to readers on the endpapers) is: Jerome had no words to describe how happy that made him. That means it’s not only about a love of words. It’s also about what writers do!
What ONE word would for sure be in your Favourite Words Collection?
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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.
