Some Advice
How to Read Aloud Well
An American father once said to me, ‘So how do you do this read-aloud thing?’ I was almost too taken aback to answer. Wasn’t it obvious? Then I realised that it wouldn’t be obvious if he hadn’t been read to as a child. I wanted to say: ‘Well, you know—find a book, call your child, and sit down and read the book to the child.’ But it was so simple that I was too embarrassed to say it.
Should we teach writing well or badly?
Once upon a time—in 1992—I found myself in Donald Graves’ house in New Hampshire. Linda Rief, a friend of mine, was friend of his, so there we were, somehow, at his place, taking tea with God himself, and his wife, Betty. To put me at my ease, since I was so clearly awestruck, Don said lovely things about my book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and asked what I was working on. I told him it was a picture book called Time for Bed due for publication the following year.
The Folly of Jolly Old Phonics
Once upon a time in Australia there lived three children. Their names were Sean, Justin and Josephine. Sean lived in Hobart, and still does. Justin lived in Melbourne, and still does. And Josephine lived in Adelaide—and still does, around the corner from me. Each of these children learnt to read before he or she went to school, without any lessons. How this happened is fascinating. And challenging. And ultimately, confronting for those of us in literacy education.
Notes from the battlefield
I’m a writer. As such I often see myself as a bloodied and wounded soldier staggering around a battlefield in an attempt to conquer the blank page. As a soldier in the thick of it all I will try to explain from the battlefield why I write and why other write around me. I’ll also try to puzzle out, from the perspective of a war correspondent who stands back and observes, why there are so many deserters out there, refusing to take up their pens and write alongside me. Is it becausethe wages aren’t good enough? Is it because there’s nothing worth writing for? Is it because it’s only a pretend battle with pretend rewards for pretend winners? We’ll see.