Location: Jumpstart Offices
Date: Monday, August 12, 2013; 6:00-8:00 pm
“Goodnight blueberry patch,” Little Bear said while eating a few more
berries on his way to the den.
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| The beautiful location where I found my book |
In a gift shop in one of the most
remote parts of the world that I have visited, on top of Mount Alyeska in
Girdwood Alaska, I found a book called ‘Goodnight
Alaska – Goodnight Little Bear’ by Bernd
and Susan Richter. The breathtaking
view, something the likes of which I had never seen before, demanded that I get
something to memorialize my visit. As I
looked through the most charming gift shop, perched above the mountain, I came
across this book. Knowing that in a few
days I was going to be part of the most unique volunteer project in my time
with One Brick, I bought it for the
project. After a journey of thousands of
miles, the book made its way to Jumpstart offices.
The description of the project on
One Brick website said, “Jumpstart is a
national early education organization that addresses the crisis in early
education and is a research-based, cost-effective supplemental program in
preschools serving low-income families that encourages literacy and
socio-emotional development. Since many
of our preschools have experienced budget cuts and staff shortages, meaning
that resources are stretched thin and children do not have enough time with
books being read aloud to them, One Brick volunteers will be helping Jumpstart
by creating audio recordings of children's books. This will help provide preschools with
audiobooks of children's stories that children can listen to on their own to
facilitate reading or the teacher can play in addition to reading aloud to the
class, giving children greater opportunities to build comprehension and
vocabulary. This event is looking for
volunteers to record themselves expressively and creatively reading children's
storybooks to create a CD that we can provide to our preschools. So let's get into character and come help
low-income preschools! Volunteers are
encouraged to bring at least one children's book that they would like to
record. Feel free to bring your favorite book from when you were young! This
book will then be donated directly to a low-income preschool-aged child in the
Jumpstart program.” It went on to
say that, “Since 1993, they have impacted
over 50,000 preschoolers nationwide, and in Chicago have 250 corps members and
serve over 650 children each year”.
I will be the first to admit that my voice is terrible and I have no
business recording anything, let alone audio books. But I was fascinated by it and was sold on
the description. So it was with a mixture of trepidation and excitement, that I
arrived to find Wilson and Laura, who were the Event leaders.
The offices were in Gold Coast
and with its high loft style ceiling design and open spaces; it looked like a
creative place. Indeed, there were many
other businesses in the building, which dealt with art and media. Amy, the Jumpstart site rep told us a bit
more about the organization, especially how they assist low income schools who
do not have staff to read to the kids.
She said that a child from a low-income family is usually 3-4 million
words behind a similar child from an affluent family by age of 4. That was a staggering statistics and made our
work here that much more important. The
books that we would be recording today would be handed to various schools and
used by the kids there as audio books. We
were to be divided into 3 groups of 4 each and while one group would record on
an iPhone, the other would be doing so on a video recorder and a third on a
Mac. I was paired with Danielle, Hannah
and Julia – who is a professional voice artist.
We were given an iPhone and located in an open office. Unfortunately for us, the phone in the office
kept ringing and eventually Amy had to come and unplug it. This did not prevent the other external
noises as well as the chatter of the people outside. But we decided to plough through it all.
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| My book |
The first book that we selected
was indeed my ‘Goodnight Alaska’. We decided that rather than one person
reading it, we would have one narrator and others playing characters. For this one I was playing the narrator
whereas Danielle was the Little Bear,
Julia the Momma Bear and Hannah was some
of the other animal characters in the story.
We did a dry run and made some tweaks such as all of us saying “Goodnight” in unison when during the final
pages all animals wish the Little Bear. We then recorded on the phone and once we
were done, played back to realize that we had done a fantastic job. Next, we selected Julia’s book, ‘On The Night You Were Born’. This one had a lot of potential for
enhancements such as sound effects. We
decided to incorporate them and this meant I was whistling as a bird and
someone else was quacking as a duck and the third was honking like geese. Julia said “The End” one page before it was due and so we had to erase and
record again. But we had so much fun
doing it the first time around, that nobody was complaining.
Next came Danielle’s book, ‘Bernstein Bears And Too Much Junk Food’. I was playing Papa Bear, Julia was Mama
Bear, Danielle played the Brother and
Sister Bears and Hannah was the Doctor. The book was about Momma Bear teaching the rest of the family the virtues of dieting
and was once again we were totally engaged in our characters. After that was ‘Franklin In The Dark’ where I played the Tiger and tried to do my best deep voice impersonation. Following this was ‘Jamberry’ and this is where our creativity moved up a notch thanks
to Hannah. The book was rich with lot of
visuals and she decided to make it more interactive for the kids. Along with the audio files that we were
recording, the kids were also going to given a copy of the actual book to
follow. Hannah suggested that after
reading a page, we ask the kids a question on each page, such as finding an
object. This meant that we add a pause
at the end of each page to give them the opportunity to answer. This was a great idea and we took full
advantage of it.
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| All the books that we recorded |
Finally, we did “Teeny Tiny Mouse”, which is a book
about colors. A tiny mouse is trying to
identify colors of various objects in the room.
We recorded the book and then I said that we should do it again, this
time with me as the narrator, asking the kids to identify some other objects of
similar color on the page and after a pause, pointing one out. This worked really well and I thought that
this was our finest job and we had saved the best for the end. The other groups came out of their session
looking similarly pleased and it seems that every single volunteer had enjoyed
themselves. Amy thanked us and we
continued debating which group had done the best job over some spiked
milkshakes at ’25 Degrees’. I told Laura and Wilson that this had been my
favorite One Brick project to date and I was definitely looking forward to
returning again.
I consider myself extremely
fortunate because even after all these years, I remember my parents reading to
me as a kid. My dad used to not only buy, but also read comic books to me animatedly and there were even
occasions where my grandma got all of the cousins and me together for an afternoon of
reading. Years later I was in high
school and while I was a voracious reader, I did not enjoy reading anything in
my native language. My mom insisted that
I read this book and since it was not in English, I made her read it to me, and
I remember nights after dinner where we sat down laughing at some of the things
in that book. One of the sweetest sights
I used to see frequently was in Pittsburgh where I used to visit my married
friends weekly for a movie night and often find one reading a book
loudly while the other cooked. Books are
one of the greatest treasures known to man and while I completely understand
people’s preference of reading a book at their own pace, having one read to you
is a special feeling. Over the past
several years I have listened to a lot of books on tape, preferring to combine
that with either long drives or walks.
During my commute from Massachusetts to Connecticut every week, I used
to devour audio books borrowed from the public library and often associate
certain books with locations I was at when I heard them for the first
time. Later, I used to look forward to my
long riverfront walks on Sundays in Pittsburgh, as I walked listening to
books, and in fact read the entire series of my favorite authors during those years. For
the past 2 years I have done similar walks in Chicago while listening to books, and look forward to my annual ritual of listening to my favorite book ‘The Shadow Of The Wind’ by Carlos Ruiz Zafon every August, trying to
visit similar places where I was at when I heard certain passages for the first
time. The point is that audio books, or
having something read to you, can be a memorable experience. I will never forget any of these moments from
my life and having had an opportunity to help create something that may lead to
similar memories for a kid was a privilege.
Without a question, this had most certainly been my favorite One Brick
project to date.
“Goodnight Mom,” Little Bear said while snuggling into his favorite
corner. “Goodnight and sweet dreams my
little one”, Mama Bear replied before both fell into a deep sleep that would
last for many months.
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