I had an interesting conversation recently with someone who was invited to one of my performances yet didn’t attend. She said that reading stories to kids is so important. I tried to explain to her that though I like to read to others, that what I do in performances is actually tell to others, without books as props. (Other than to cite the sources for the stories I tell, if it is a book). She went on to reiterate how important it is to read to kids. She didn’t get it.
Storytelling has so much more power, to me, than reading. I guess I should clarify that. This is assuming that we are talking about telling vs. reading the same story, and you are a decent teller. As much as I like the book Eragon, it is not something that I could conceive of telling. But if you compare the telling and reading of a folktale, even as simple as the Little Red Riding Hood, I don’t think there is a contest.
As a storyteller you get to constantly maintain eye contact with the audience. You get to see their reactions and can adapt if necessary to them. As a reader, you are trapped in the words on the page. It is much more difficult to change as you sense the audience’s boredom, displeasure, antsiness, etc. That doesn’t mean you can’t change how you are presenting your story when you read it. It is just harder.
If you doubt what I say, watch what happens when you utter the words, “When I was a kid…” In my many years of teaching, relating stories of my past immediately got full attention from my students. Sure they loved my reading books about the past, but still preferred real first hand stories, told by me.
