Reading Aloud

I went along and supported my local library last night on their second Reading Aloud event. This is where you can go along and read out anything that takes your fancy. There were about twenty of us – about the same number we had last March – and again we had a good mix. These are the ones I can remember:

A bit of Pam Ayres. Not poetry but a book about her family life and a hilarious piece describing her attempts to learn French.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.
A couple of Walter de la Mare poems.
Gervase Phinn – always popular.
A couple of the pieces reflected this time of year with WW1 books The Monocled Mutineer and Testament of Youth.

In the interests of blogger solidarity I chose to read out a passage of Frances Garrood's The Birds, The Bees and Other Secrets. I picked a piece near the beginning where Cass's mum tries to teach her and her brother the facts of life. It went down very well and I had difficulty finishing it with all the laughter going on.

By the end of the session we had come to several conclusions:

War is terrible.
If you can learn to read you can learn anything.
Kids don't read enough these days.
The English language is magic.
Anybody who closes down libraries should be shot.