To read or not to read-Arts & Entertainment-Books-TimesOnline
Just caught up with this spirited piece in support of comics and other light reading from yesterday's Sunday Times.
What a star Michael Morpurgo is! If only he could have had longer in situ as Children's Laureate.
There is no more rewarding sound than the silence of 35 children hooked into a story, hanging on every word.
Just so. I was called away at short notice last week to join a Y5 residential visit when one of the accompanying teachers injured her ankle, and found myself reading to a class of children in their bedclothes, slippers and dressing gowns. The book I'd grabbed in a hurry on leaving the house turned out not to be the one I'd intended, so I ended up reading a story I wasn't familiar with - The Fate of Thomas P. Kanne by Brian Jacques from a collection 'Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales', a dark cautionary tale about a graffiti vandal. It was much longer than I realised and had to be continued on a second night but it evoked just the silent response described by Morpurgo above.
"The best teachers," Morpurgo says, "will love books for themselves and want to pass this on."
If only he were still Laureate, repeating this over and over at the highest levels, because it isn't getting through. The question most likely to discomfort newly qulaified teachers (and, even more sadly, sometimes more experienced teachers) when they come to interview is always one about what they would choose to read to a particular class of children.
Very Highly Recommended
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