This week, the Jornadas de la animación a la lectura begin. A jornada is a conference or a workshop. This one in particular is about getting children excited about reading.
Last week, one of the teachers at my school showed me a poster with information about this conference, and I was really excited about the prospect of attending! During the summer, I've worked at a public library as a Summer Reading Program (a program that tries to keep kids reading during the summer) aide. Part of my job has included helping with story time for toddlers and preschoolers. Consequently, I'm very interested in children's literature, and I wanted to know more about children's literature in Spain.
My teacher recommended going to the first day of the jornada because the presenter, Federico Martín Nebras, is quite the character. She told me that he was a little crazy (in a good way) and would turn the presentation into a spectacle. She did not exaggerate.
He looked kind of like the captain from Moby Dick. He had one of those strange grey beards that was just on his neck, and he was wearing a funny little cap. Check out a photo here.
He was really entertaining--joking that every time the microphone stopped working it was because he was saying something wrong.
But he had some deep ideas to share about what it means to read. I'll share just a few of the tidbits he imparted.
- Read versus story-telling. Federico talked of the importance of the act of telling a story. Through telling a story, the narrator finds his or her voice.
- The point of story-telling is so that they say, "Again! Otra vez."
- It's when I am lost that I am most me. This reminded me of the philosophy of Thoreau--who says, "Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."
- When we are in the "other," we are so close to the "other" that we become the "other."
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