We have always had a fine culture of reading aloud in the house. Of course, there’s bed-time reading. And, then, there’s reading all over the city on our way from here to there. To complement this reading, we’ve often gone on to illustrate what we’ve listened to once the reading was over [see our Bisclavret illustrations or our As You Like It Sundays]. For some reason, we don’t often have the kids draw WHILE we are reading to them. Time to remedy that!!! Now, since my injury, I’ve gotten stuck substituting my usual morning runs with longer walks by the beach. In so doing, I have started listening to audio books. This got me thinking that I could have the kids do some free drawing while they were listening to a brand new tale.
So, today, I played them the first 45 minutes of a 90 minute abridgement of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (a digitized version of a cassette tape from the 1970’s, read by former Dr. Who, John Pertwee), and I asked them to draw whatever came to mind. The results? Part illustration, part abstract! We’ll be doing this again soon, and with unabridged texts!!!
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