I agree as I have seen the happiness and joy on the faces of children and adults alike when they are reading a book and enjoying it. This joy is nothing short of magic. A library is a space which holds a lot of magic and this magic has to be spread amongst children and what better way than to talk about a book? A book talk is a short teaser to share something exciting about a book that one has loved and wants to share with others. The key here is to not share the plot but to take the listener to the edge of the cliff and leave them hanging so that they borrow the book to read. In our library, we constantly have book talks to share books that we loved and want to share with others.
We also demonstrate this practice in our Libraries in School (LiS), Mobile Outreach Program (MOP) and Professional Development (ProD) programs too. In the LiS program, each of us demonstrate a book talk and then encourage children to come ahead for a book talk. Children come ahead and over time, with support from us and the book talk parameters, try to do book talks about the books that they have liked reading.
I facilitate sessions at the Sanjay Center of Special Education every Thursday and every week is an experience worth recounting. I have been demonstrating book talks for over a year there and am I surprised! We conduct the LiS sessions with two groups here – one is the Hearing Impaired group and the other is the Learning Disabled group.We decided to try it with both the sections as an experiment. Over the last year, I can only say that it has been one amazing experience.
The book talks in the Hearing Impaired group are done with the help of sign language. Children come ahead and use sign language to ‘talk’ about their book and the teacher and I along with the class watch. There have been times when children have come ahead and done fantastic book talks which we have all understood and there have been times when it has been difficult to understand what a child is trying to say.
One such instance that comes to mind was when L came with a book ’The Giraffe without Spots’. L described the title with sign language, shared his favorite picture and identified the setting of the story and started describing the cover page. The catch here was that every time he kept on showing us the sign of the letter ‘S’ while pointing to the Giraffe. The teacher and I were confused and kept asking him to explain what animal it was… a dead end as he kept showing the sign of the letter S. Finally another friend of his explained to us through sign language that he is talking about Smiley the Giraffe from his textbook and all giraffes according to L are called Smiley. And the mystery was solved.
Whenever O comes for a book talk, he ‘speaks’ so fast with his fingers that we are all dumbstruck and amazed. We now know that he would have told us the title, author, illustrator, shared about his favorite picture and maybe even told us about the characters, settings and the plot, all signed with deftness and enthusiasm.
During the book talks, one has to be careful about not revealing the entire story or any key illustrations that may give away the plot. However, many of the children are so enthusiastic about their book that they cannot stop talking about it. One such instance that comes to mind was when E from the Learning Disability group came ahead for a book talk. He was so enthusiastic that he stood and showed each and every page of the book to the class because he liked all the pages of that book and we all applauded for his super exciting book talk.
Whenever we do a book talk, we try and read a line that may have touched us in some way and share it with the listeners. R from the Learning Disabilities group struggles to talk coherently but will always raise a hand and come ahead to do a book talk and read the title and a sentence she likes. Never mind that we do not understand what she says but we all feel what she says and know that she is sharing something very important to her about the book. .
There are so many such instances about book talks preserved and kept carefully in my bag of memories that I marvel at times. Is it the magic of the books or the magic of the children itself who have been observing and soaking it all in?
