Sharing Stories by Anne Fine
Sharing Stories
If there’s a greater pleasure in the world of books than sharing stories with others, then I would love to know about it. I look back on my time as a parent and a grandparent, and it seems to me that the happiest times have been when we’ve been stuffed in a row on a sofa, or, even better still, in bed, reading together. When they were tiny, the chubby little hand came down so often to stop me turning the page. “Why is that man so cross?” “Why is she crying?” “Is Penguin going to crash that plane?” With screens all round them, children get too used to seeing things they don’t understand rush past their eyes at the producer’s speed rather than their own, and it is only with a book that there is time to explain why these things happen, why this particular character made that decision, or felt that way. Gradually the child can get on top of the mysteries of their own universe.
And open up, because an emotion shared over a book can be an emotion mirrored in the child’s life. “Suzie at nursery pushes me like that.” “I’m scared of growly dogs too.” (Arnold Lobel is unmatched in this department. Read Frog and Toad, and you’ll come across problems all children recognise: ice creams that melt too fast, lost buttons, failure of will power, and all the myriad misunderstandings, anxieties and triumphs of small busy lives.
In my novel Aftershocks, the Endlanders have embedded the sharing of stories into their culture. They gather on the beach to tell their tales, and when it’s one of trauma or grief, it’s retold over and over, in much the same way as you or I might have a story we find comforting. (As one of five girls, the fairy tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses was my favourite. We weren’t that odd, then. There were twelve of them.)
The pleasure of sharing lasts into adulthood. Look at how many of us are in book groups, and how important word of mouth praise for a novel can be. So many of us somehow find others in our lives who love the same sort of books as we do and pass on the names of authors and titles they enjoyed, enriching our own reading life. So someone like me can’t help but be a passionate evangelist for books and reading. That’s why I’m so in favour of World Book Night, and its mission
to bring the joys of reading to those who still need to be drawn in. Books teach you how the wider world works, not just your own tiny sliver of it. They teach you how others tick, and, vicariously, self-knowledge (“I’m not like that!” “I would have done that too.”) and self-knowledge is one of the most important of virtues.
All hail, World Book Night! Let us all pitch in and share all the stories we can.
Aftershocks by Anne Fine is published by Old Barn Books and is a World Book Night book for 2023 https://worldbooknight.org
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.