When the Book Isn’t Working

• It sounds good in the mouth. The sentences in our failed book were long, awkward, and all built the same way. Reading aloud exposed every clumsy sentence.  A good read-aloud has a musical quality to it: short sentences next to long ones, sounds that land, lines that practically read themselves.

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“I slip off Prince’s back and drop to the ground, stiff, sore and plumb tuckered out. Prince clomps right up to the lake and sinks his muzzle into its blue depths, sucking up the water and swallowing it in huge gusty gulps. After a bit, he rears his head up and swooshes water around in his mouth, streams of it pouring down his tongue and teeth.”

From Lost on the Prairie by MaryLou Driedger

With that in mind, read this passage aloud, and relish its musical perfection!

• Listening level beats reading level. Children can follow richer vocabulary and more complex plots by ear than they can decode on their own. Reading expert Jim Trelease, says reading level doesn’t catch up to listening level until about eighth grade, so a read-aloud can safely stretch past what students would pick up themselves, often adding to their interest in the story, and more opportunities for discussion.   

• It has a voice. A fictional narrator with a distinct personality gives me something to perform and gives students someone to follow. In a good read-aloud, each character sounds different and has a personality of their own. In the book we dropped, I couldn’t have told you who was speaking.

• Something is happening in every chapter. When a novel is read a chapter or two at a time, a strong purpose driving the story helps listeners pick up the action when they come back the next day. If a listener can’t say what the character wants, the book isn’t pulling them forward.

• It has a pinch of peril. Adults tend to protect kids from difficult material, such as fear, loss, injustice, or a sad ending. A hard topic works when the book is honest about it, trusts the reader, and doesn’t talk down, over-explain what they should feel, or tidy everything up. Readers aged about 9 to 13 are old enough to meet those things in a story, especially in the safety of a shared classroom with a teacher there to talk about it.

• It sparks talk. The best read-alouds leave room for discussion: right and wrong, loyalty, loss, fairness, justice.  The right book will have kids arguing about it at recess.

• The characters are complex. The people in our abandoned book were paper thin: one note each, with nothing to puzzle over. Complex characters are the opposite. They want two things at once, they surprise us, and they can be brave and frightened in the same scene. That gives the class something to argue about. Listeners can’t flip ahead to find out who a character is. They have to keep wondering.

So, with these features in mind, here are three Canadian novels I’d open on a restless afternoon, though I’ll admit to some bias about the last one.

Lost on the Prairie by MaryLou Driedger

A fast-paced adventure set in 1907 about a 12-year-old boy who becomes separated from his family on a train ride from Kansas to Saskatchewan.  Expect real danger and the emotional weight of a child separated from his family.

No Fixed Address by Susin Nielsen
Twelve-year-old Felix is funny, quirky, and living in a van with his mother, a secret he’s determined to keep from his new classmates. Narrated in his own distinctive voice, it mixes humour with real worry about family, money, and belonging.

Coop the Great by Larry Verstraete

Full disclosure. I wrote this book, but I’ve been told by teachers that it checks all the read-aloud boxes. It’s narrated by Coop, a cynical rescue dachshund who draws courage during a dangerous journey from stories of great dogs his new owner has read to him. Themes of family, friendship, loss, and grief spark lively discussions.

So, don’t make the mistake I did. Before you read a book to your class, read a chapter aloud to an empty room. If it rolls off your tongue, bring it in. If it doesn’t, your students will understand. Mine did.