Friday, September 17, 2010

Mommy's Audio Books - Storytelling

Yana’s latest post, Is Listening to Audio Books “Cheating?” has started me thinking. It’s a good thing, too, because she is starting to get pretty annoyed at my lack of contributions to this blog. She started me thinking with this sentence, “Additionally, oral language precedes written language, and oral storytelling has been a valuable cultural cornerstone of many civilizations. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with listening to a story now and then.”

Here is what I am thinking about.

I don’t know how it happened. Somehow, in an unexplained turn of events, my husband has secured the role of bedtime book reader. This was once a role I cherished. My oldest boy was a brilliant reader and an avid book lover, and I was secretly proud, if not self-righteous, with the knowledge that I was responsible for his outstanding abilities.

I felt this way because, even before he was born, I was reading to him. No matter what material I was reading, I shared it aloud with him. Newspapers, school books, term papers—nothing was off limits.

As he grew older, we took trips to the library together. We never left the building with less than 30 books in tow. A few days later, having read all of our books multiple times, we returned for more. His personal book collection grew as well.

I never forced him to read. I simply shared my enthusiasm for books, and exposed him to as many as I could. Reading time was bonding time, and any time was reading time.

Flash forward 8 years.

I am no longer sanctimonious. I have learned, thanks to my youngest boy, a love for reading belongs only to those who love to read. Though my intentions were the same, and I read to him as often, he has not learned to love books like my oldest. I shared the same material, I filled his room with books, but when the time came to actually sit down and read, he was more interested in jumping on my head, turning pages, and talking over my words. His need for attention surpassed his need for the written word.

I guess that is why my husband won his role. His patience was greater than mine.

Recently, however, I decided to try something new—Storytelling. I must admit, it isn’t easy. I have never been an excellent public speaker. Coming up with off-the-cuff stories isn’t quite my forte either. But, the good news is, I have a large collection of children’s books to draw from. I have read and reread so many children’s stories, that I can almost verbalize them verbatim. I think I will call my stories Mommy’s Audio Books (MABs).

In recent weeks, I have discovered that MABs are big sellers in our home. Through them, my little one gets the one-on-one, face time attention that he craves. He is happy to sit still for an MAB, and I don’t have to try to find my place after an interruption.

I am confident that storytelling is helping my son to learn, and instilling in him a love of learning. I hope one day that he will be a great storyteller too. Sequencing, problem-solving, a strong vocabulary, and self-confidence, are just a few of the benefits he will gain. Storytelling is helping me to learn as well. I am able to discover my voice, connect with my listener, and get feedback.

So, I agree with Yana, “There is nothing wrong with listening to a story now and then.” And, there is nothing wrong with telling one either.

Hayley

PS – On my most creative nights, I can come up with some pretty remarkable stories. Perhaps one day, I will turn them into books.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Is listening to audio books “cheating?”

I used to think so. I’m somewhat of a book purist (some would say snob), and I tend to prefer my books the traditional way, in print. No fancy eReaders for me! Similarly, I used to feel that audio books were somehow not real books. Maybe it’s a holdover from my student days, but I still consider reading “work,” even though it’s my favorite hobby—a labor of love, if you will. The physical act of holding a book and running your eyes down the page equals reading; listening to an audio book while cooking, driving, or laying on the couch equals entertainment, like watching TV. Right?

A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine helped to change my outlook on audio books. She listens to them quite frequently, especially while commuting, and gave me a few to try out. I can’t say that I was an immediate convert. There have been a few books I simply could not listen to for one reason or another. For example, I don’t enjoy books read by a large cast, as if the book is a play rather than a novel. Sometimes a reader’s voice, accent, or phrasing grates on my nerves so much that I have to switch to the print version.

Books read by the author tend to be the best. And sometimes you will get lucky with an amazing reader, such as Ron Perlman, who read part one of Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s The Strain. Aside from great performances, there are some useful benefits to audio books:
- It gives you something to do other than listening to music or talk radio while commuting or taking long trips. And you feel so productive when you’re listening to a book!
- The addition of audio books can help double the amount you read. You can be reading one book and listening to another at the same time!
- At least for me, listening to a book in the car keeps me more alert and makes me a better driver. There is no time to daydream, or you might miss a crucial point.
- You are more likely to listen to something that you might find too difficult/tiring to read. I, for example, find it very difficult to read non-fiction books. Even if I find the topic interesting, I have trouble concentrating on it for an extended period of time if I’m reading. I don’t mind newspaper or magazine articles, but books exhaust me. However, I can listen to non-fiction books all day long! This could also work for literature classics (which you’ve had laying on your nightstand for two years but just can’t seem to read past page 20), such as Anna Karenina or A Tale of Two Cities.

“Aha!” you might say, “But this is proof that listening to audio books is cheating. It’s like using a shortcut.” And to that I would say, “Absolutely not!” That would be like saying that reading a textbook is superior to listening to a teacher’s lecture. We all know that a great teacher can make a subject come alive. Here’s how I see it: at its most basic level, reading is absorbing content from an outside source. Whether you absorb it visually or auditorily is irrelevant. Additionally, oral language precedes written language, and oral storytelling has been a valuable cultural cornerstone of many civilizations. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with listening to a story now and then.

What I do wonder about with regard to audio books is whether authors should consider modifying their writing style to cater to audio audiences. Sometimes in a book you might come across a long dialogue in which the speakers are not identified. If you are reading this dialogue, you might get confused, but you could always go back and count from the beginning who is saying which line. If you are listening to this same dialogue in an audio book, it might be very difficult to follow if the speakers are not identified in some way. Another example involves visual cues in text, such as using italics to indicate thoughts or using page breaks to indicate time or perspective shifts. These nuances would be lost on a listener and could cause a misinterpretation of the content. But is it the responsibility of the writer, the purveyor of the written word, to be concerned with how his or her finished product is used—in print, electronic, or audio format? Would format consideration put constraints on the writer’s creativity? I have a feeling that writers will have to address this issue in the near future.