busker

Book Buddy

I sign on as an Ordway School 'book buddy' - a non-teacher non-parent listening to 8th graders read aloud in unthreatening non-judgmental surroundings.

I realise I 'otter' have done this many moons ago.

Our younger daughter attended the excellent Ordway and the memories flood as I walk up to the school:

• The classrooms I visited her in
• That gradient wall outside the main entrance where, holding Anna's hand, she'd walk along the ascending wall as I used terra firma. As the ground sloped way, A would gain height as I descended 'til she was level with me and then looking down. How she loved that; how we'd laugh.
• The basket ball court where she couldn't believe I had never shot a hoop IN MY LIFE. The hoop must've seemed in the distant clouds to her, but she shot well and with concentrated determination

My fellow buddy booksists were more terrifying than the ordeal ahead: mostly my age, quite a few older in their 60s+.

We waited our orders and duly followed our leader to the first classroom. Twenty mins for each read, then on the next.

I was paired with a darling boy, so soft of voice I couldn't actually hear him clearly. His reading was some space adventure, full of weird names and italicized emphases.

The first thing I noticed was that he skimmed from sentence to sentence, para to para, sans a pause. Next, each time he came across an ital emphasis, his voice would swoop up on the *last* syllable - "Run for IT!" ~ "EmergenCEE!" ~ "CareFUL!".

My next was a delightful girl, very intelligent and fierce to learn who'd invent words - invasion for invention, world for while, stood for strode. With her I was sterner, checking her each time and making her re-read and sort the letters out. We got on fine.

My third was a stunning young lady in whose corporation I will take shares the second I hear she is up for CEO. "Don't tell me", she kept telling me as she wrestled with a word. "OK, what *is* it?" on other occasions.

How come you talk like funny I c'n unnderstand?" she asked about my posh Brit accent. "I like it. I can understand you ... but it's weird. Where you from?"

I left with that glowing feeling that the future is secure in such hands.