Our Northern Ireland project worker Patricia Canning fills us in the ongoing progress of Get Into Reading Northern Ireland, highlighting the powerful impact words and literature have amongst a wide range of people:

Every Wednesday afternoon I read with a group of women who tell me that being a part of this Get Into Reading group makes them feel relaxed, ‘chilled’, less stressed, and on the whole, liberated. The irony is, that this GIR group is in Hydebank Prison, Belfast. Reading an extract from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol a few weeks back, the women talked about how his depiction of the biting cold had made them all feel very chilly: ‘he really knows how to describes things, doesn’t he? I’m freezing here!’

Being able to ‘feel’ what the writer is describing – even if it is the cold – is a testament to the power of words, and of the benefits of reading good literature. These women, like everyone else who benefits from attending Get Into Reading groups across the mainland, enjoy that liberating feeling of being able to identify with other characters, with events and with feelings and emotions that they might otherwise struggle to understand, articulate, or even acknowledge. Words can do that – as Ferdinand Pessoa puts it:

To express something is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror. Fields are greener in their description than in their actual greenness. Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability not found in cellular life.

Reading a difficult Shakespearean sonnet recently, one of the women read the line, ‘I all alone beweep my outcast state’, and proclaimed, ‘it’s about depression, isn’t it?’ In our group, Shakespeare has helped us understand that depression is a timeless phenomenon and can chance upon the best of us.

Thankfully, these benefits are reaching further afield because people are attending to the positive effects of shared reading here, as Health In Mind’s recent poetry and prose event at Coleraine library so wonderfully demonstrated. We now have a fantastic Get Into Reading group in Queen’s University, Belfast, every Thursday afternoon, which is well attended by a spirited bunch of people who read, chat, drink tea, chat, read, and marvel at the ways in which reading together enriches both the reading experience and our day in equal measure.

The Reading Revolution has begun in Northern Ireland, but we need passionate people who believe in the power of reading to help take it even further. We are hosting an open Read To Lead training course at Holywood Library over three weeks: Friday 3rd, 10th and 17th February 2012. If you want to share the joys of shared reading in your community, there are a few places left on the course. For further details and to book your place, please contact Jessica Reeves for more information: jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk

Each week, Audrey the dog visits Redcar Community College to sit in on children’s read-aloud sessions. Teachers noticed that children often get nervous when they are asked to read aloud and so enlisted Audrey to help them relax and feel less self-conscious while reading. Needless to say, the sessions – and Audrey – have been a big success.

While of course Audrey should stay where she is, we’d quite like a ‘reading’ dog of our own to be a Reading Revolution mascot…

It’s especially important that children are given the opportunity to express themselves openly, as well as respect and listen to those around them – and we’ve found that literature and shared reading sessions provide a particularly effective outlet for these things to happen. Quite spectacularly as a result of engaging in shared reading 89% of children in schools across Liverpool said that they were more confident discussing their ideas and opinions as a part of being in a group.

Even more encouraging is the fact that 96% of children agreed that they were more understanding towards the ideas and opinions of other people as a result of shared reading. Absolutely wonderful findings, showing that reading isn’t just about academic education - but emotional development too.

If you want to have the real-life Nellibobs reading experience, there’s still plenty of time to sign up to Brian’s Dorset Delights course  at Birkenhead Central Library. The course takes place each Thursday morning, 10.30am-12.30pm for the next nine weeks, exploring literature inspired by the county. Places on the course cost £60; £50 for pensioners, students and those on income support; £40 for Get Into Reading members and £30 for GIR members receiving income support.

To book your place, download a booking form here or e-mail Jessica Reeves: jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk

When my friend passed this 624-page novel to me, starting it honestly felt like a bit of an epic endeavour: I am, admittedly, a very slow reader. It also didn’t help that it was set in, and describes, a period of political history in a country that I at that point had never visited and knew nothing about: 1970s India. However, I was also incredibly curious because the aforesaid friend had been reading the book for the past three weeks of our travels together, and I had been forced to sit next to her on trains, planes, buses and boats as she gasped with horror, laughed out loud and, eventually, finished the book with her hand clasped against her mouth with tears running down her face. Sworn to secrecy so as not to spoil it for me, she hadn’t breathed a word about the plot: but had thoroughly convinced me that this was a book I needed to read. Also, when she finally passed it to me, we were 2 hours into a 42-hour bus ride in Africa. So time was something I wasn’t short of…

I can honestly say that reading this novel was one of the most intense experiences I have had with a book. You are literally tossed between extremes of emotion, thrown back and forward through time, and transported into new worlds: both bewitching and unspeakably cruel. The story centres around four unlikely characters who are thrown together as a result of the tumultuous political and social circumstances in the present-day of the novel. However, as Mistry skilfully reveals the very different, and often very sad, back-stories that have led each of the characters to where they are now, the relationships formed between the four become all the more moving…

And yes, at the end, I cried. (It took me somewhat longer than the 42 hours of the bus journey…not least because the bus had no lights, and my head torch had packed-up). But the tears weren’t just because of the events that take place at the book’s conclusion. They were because suddenly, at that final moment, the whole of the book was brought crashing back into my head all at once: I remembered all of the terrible things that meant, it couldn’t have ended any other way; I remembered the parts that made me smile and laugh and forget about all the enormous, ugly, impossible things the characters are pitted against. It was overwhelming, to say the least…. my friend had to hold my hand.

If you have ever wanted to know anything about India, or contemporary history, or raw human survival and connection: READ THIS. I dare you.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry, Faber and Faber (2010)

Over 250 years on (253 to be precise), the Ploughman Poet is still heralded as Scotland’s finest and his work holds a firm place in the heart of many a Scot, as well as people of various other nationalities. Just days ago, a poll questioning over 1,000 Scots about their ultimate Rabbie poem concluded the nation’s favourite to be the epic Tam O’Shanter, one of the first and arguably finest examples of narrative poetry. Coming in second place was A Man’s a Man for A’ That, with – very appropriately – Address To A Haggis just behind.

But you might not know that Rabbie was not just the poet of the people, but that A-list stars had a fondness for him too. In what is probably one of the most bizarre meetings of literature and music I have ever come across, it has been revealed that back in the late 1980′s Michael Jackson recorded a series of showtunes inspired by Burns’s life and work. The intriguing sounding collection has not seen the light of day before but is now to be donated to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire, as a way of illustrating Burns’s “international, enduring artistic legacy”. Let’s hope the songs are more Bard than Bad (if you can come up with any better Burns/Jacko puns they’d be appreciated because that was, quite frankly, rubbish).

Seeing as today is not only Burns Night but also St Dwynwen’s Day – the Welsh Valentine’s Day – it seems only appropriate to mark the two occasions with what has to be Rabbie’s most romantic poem (which can also be found in Poems To Take Home). A bonnie Burns Night and Dydd Santes Dwynwen Hapus (‘Happy St Dwynwen’s Day’, for those of us who don’t speak Welsh) to all.

A Red, Red Rose

My luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
My luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune:

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry -

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun -
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run!

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, a while -
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

Robert Burns

We celebrated both Dickens’ bicentenary, and the expansion of our Get Into Reading groups across the capital, with a truly magical line-up of readers, comedy, and music which had the audiences in stitches one minute, and tearful the next. The British Library provided a suitably literary venue and Vintage gave everyone a free Dickens novel to take home with them. No wonder the public tickets sold out in a day!

Charles Dickens casts a critical eye over proceedings

Whilst a portrait of the great man himself looked down on us, his actual DNA appeared on stage in the form of Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, his great-great-great granddaughter, who apologised for reading A Tale of Two Cities from a well-loved paperback rather than a precious family heirloom. This made no difference to the quality of her performance, however; all of our readers left the audience in spellbound silence. 

The wonderful AS Byatt read the opening to Great Expectations, reminiscing about the effect it had on her as a child and delivering Magwitch’s threats with relish. It might be January, but our own Phil Davis’ portrayal of the loving Cratchitt family in A Christmas Carol  still kindled a warm and fuzzy feeling, whilst  Angela Macmillan movingly recreated Peggotty’s loyalty and devotion to the young David Copperfield, leaving one audience member ‘weeping like a burst water pipe’.

Ida Barr does her thing

TRO's Director Jane Davis and Tweedy the Clown

 Judging by the enthusiastic response from the audience and the reaction on Twitter, the event was an enormous success:

“I didn’t know I could be entertained like that”

“Clowns, cowbells, magicians and AS Byatt should be mixed more often!”

“Pure joy”

Dickens himself was a consummate entertainer and would surely have approved of the eclectic line-up, a perfect mix of comedy and pathos, just like the novels we were there to celebrate.

A big thank you to everyone who was involved and made it such a special event. If you came along, we’d love to hear your thoughts so please leave a comment below.

Don’t worry if you didn’t make it this time around – we will be back in Liverpool as usual in December and fingers crossed our London escapades will be the first of many!

From Pip to Potter: Celebrating the Place of Children in Care in Literature will take an insightful look at the representation of cared for children in a range of well-loved literature – some of the best loved literary characters are children who are living away from home (Peter Pan, Harry Potter, Lyra Belacqua in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy) and an esteemed panel, including representatives from The Reader Organisation, will gather to discuss these cared-for heroes in the context of a system where children in care can experience stigma.

Poet Lemn Sissay, who has personal experience of the care system, will lead the discussion, and will be joined by Rose Griffiths, founder of The Letterbox Club and poet Caroline Bird who will be representing the work of First Story, which fosters creativity, literacy and talent in hard-to-reach young people.

The Reader Organisation can testify to the significance of reading with looked-after children, and this stimulating event promises to highlight the importance of literature in the lives of cared-for children.

From Pip To Potter: Celebrating the Place of Children in Care in Literature
Sunday 19th February, 5pm, Level 5 Function Room
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

The event is free but requires a ticket and a small booking charge will apply. You can reserve your ticket online on the Southbank Centre website (£1.75 transaction fee) or by phone on 0844 847 9910 (£2.75 transaction fee). You can also book your ticket without transaction fees by visiting one of the Southbank Centre’s ticketing offices in person.

As the nights were drawing in before Christmas I read the poem The Night is Darkening Round Me with several of the young people I read with. We loved it as a really atmospheric poem – the descriptions of the dark, wild weather are both exciting and menacing:

I enjoyed reading this poem and feeling the contrast between the wild descriptions and the forceful, insistent repetition: “I cannot go.”

There are so many possibilities to explore from this poem. The different ideas we had about where the person is were interesting and quite contentious! I imagine they are standing outside and unable to go home. A 12year old girl disagreed, saying she thought the person was stuck at home, safe, but unable to go where she needs to. A 14 year old lad suggested:

“it’s a ghost – they don’t feel the weather – but something means they’re stuck haunting that place.”

We tried to work out why the person might be unable to move: are they scared? Are they lost? Do they just love that spot? It conveys a very peculiar but particular state of mind, which is difficult to define and explain.

As well as exploring many possible stories behind the poem, some young people also recognised their own more strange experiences. A girl told me:

“thats like me, maybe something happened or they saw something then focussed on it and zoned out from everything else around.”

The Night Is Darkening Round Me

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me:
I will not, cannot go.

Emily Bronte

The latest instalment comes from one of our Hope Readers Dave Cookson, who is exploring Nigeria… (if you want to catch up on any of our previous Readers of the World posts, you can take yourself on a mini round the world trip right here)

Nigeria has the 7th largest population in the world, and English is its official language, often used in educational settings and is used by many as a second language.

The diversity of Nigeria means there is a wide range of literature in a variety of languages. Yoruba is spoken by 20 million, with the first novel in this language (The Forest of a Thousand Demons by D.A. Fagunwa) published relatively recently in 1938. Hausa is spoken by 25 million and the language’s first novel emerged from a competition ran by Northern Nigeria’s Translation Bureau. The winner was Muhammadu Bello’s 1933 work Gandoki. Igbo is a language spoken by some 20 million Nigerians, and The Proverbs of Omenuko by Pita Nwana was the language’s first novel, published in 1933, when another famous Igbo person was just three years old: Chinua Achebe.

Despite his Igbo background Achebe wrote in English, producing one of the most highly-acclaimed and widely read African books in history: Things Fall Apart. The novel is fiercely anti-colonial whilst acknowledging the flaws of pre-colonial society, following the deeply-flawed protagonist Okonkwo as he tries to dominate the village of Umuofia and then prevent it succumbing to the English colonialists. Things Fall Apart clearly drew on the proverbial influence of the Igbo culture demonstrated in the very first Igbo novel and throughout its rich history of story-telling.

Achebe’s novels are examples of the power of good story-telling, but his own experiences of storytelling and its benefits are not limited to politically-tinged novels. In the essay ‘My Daughters’ he tells of a time when his two-and-a-half year old daughter, Nwando, would cry on the way to her new American nursery school, not speak to anyone once she was there and on the way back would seem ‘desolate’. What happened next was beautiful:

“In the end we struck a bargain that solved the problem. I had to tell her a story all the way to school if she promised not to cry when I dropped her off. Very soon she added another story all the way back. The agreement, needless to say, taxed my repertory of known and fudged stories to the utmost. But it worked. Nwando was no longer crying. By the year’s end she had become such a success in her school that many of her little American schoolmates had begun to call their school Nwando-haven instead of its proper name, Wonderhaven.”

Despite being a country with such a short history involving the English language Nigeria has consistently produced brilliant writers including poets Christopher Okigbo and Wole Soyinka; author of The Voice, Gabriel Okara; Booker Prize winning author of The Famished Road, Ben Okri and author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The frustrating thing about Nigeria and its rich literary history is that reports claim around half the country suffers with literacy problems. In a bid to combat this, President Goodluck Jonathan introduced the ‘Bring Back the Book’ initiative in December 2010. This was a national pledge to protect libraries, conduct readings of the country’s literature in educational institutions, research issues relating to reading and support organisations conducting reading-related activity. The ultimate aim of the initiative is to revitalise a reading culture in Nigeria.

BBB has incorporated numerous events into the initiative, with authors nominated for the Nigeria Prize for Literature being paired with children to read. However, the event took a surprising turn when an argument about witches erupted between a high school pupil and one of the nominees! At the same event a cultural activist claimed foreign cartoons were killing the folk tale tradition of Nigeria, and cartoons did no good to a child’s moral upbringing.

To take a nationalistic view of the merits of writing, particularly in English, Nigeria is a literary giant. If you’ve never read anything by one of Achebe, Okigbo or Soyinka then it’s about time you right that wrong.