Frank Thoms, Teacher in the Rye

n its second page, we learned that the mouse and his child’s spinning stops with the child ending suspended in the air. I paused to ask for reactions and discovered an intriguing conversation. Throughout the book it was stop and go with Hoban’s arresting story regaling us with his numerous fantastical characters. Reading aloud became a goto habit for many years after.

When teaching about the nuclear threat in the 80s, I read aloud to one of my eighth-grade social studies classes Hoban’s Riddley Walker (New York: Summit Books, 1980). I wanted to plant an awareness of the aftermath of nuclear war. I was pleasantly surprised at the students’ willingness to listen and discuss.

Reading stories brought us together, a communal time, all of us inside another world, in on what is happening, postulating about what might happen. We stop and ponder, taking us to new places, new ideas, new thinking. I enjoyed stepping back and listening in on children’s conversations. Were teachers to choose to read aloud, regardless of their subject area, they would be pleasantly surprised. They would be offering face-to-face opportunities for children to speak and listen to one another. Away from their phones.

Given the fast techno-culture we now live in, teachers (and parents) choosing to read aloud invites children to slow their minds and rest inside a world away from the outside pressures of their screen-driven world with its insistent need for attention. Sitting quietly, listening without distractions brings them closer to understanding who they are separate from endless media inputs. And I, sitting here at my desk, can only imagine how students today would react. Teachers, on the other hand, can take time in their classrooms to read aloud and decide about its effect. I wish I could be there.