Podcasting...I'm in.

Okay, I'm hooked and it's so cool! As it turns out, this exercise was one of the most poweful for me. There's a lot of junk out there but I found amazing stuff and I loved listening.

I pulled up itunes directory of podcasts and searched under Books and by chance clicked on the podcast itunes: Meet the Author. At an Apple store in Soho, author Chuck Palahniuk (I recently finished his book Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey, which I really liked) and director/screenwriter Clark Gregg were talking about Palahniuk's novel Choke and its film adaptation --kismet! I find his writing really compelling and I liked hearing his reading, the movie excerpt and the interview and now I'm a subscriber.

But I also listened to NPR: Children's Literature with Daniel Pinkwater and listened to Daniel Pinkwater and Scott Simon trade off reading Bonny Becker's A Visitor for Bear.
Interestingly, we had just been talking about how a storytime via podcast would fly and I was a little skeptical -- thinking it would be flat without the interaction of the listeners but it was actually fun to listen to. I think having 2 different voices worked really well -- there was conversation about the illustrations as well as the audible enjoyment of the two reading out loud together. It gave me something to think about and maybe something we can do in Children's.

And I listened to This American Life, Episode #364, Going Big, and the first chapter was set in Harlem and was about a program called Baby College which emphasized the importance of reading and language to children for future learning; of brain development and the importance of talking, singing and reading to your children; that the biggest factor determining a child's later success in school is determined by the sheer number of word parents spoke to children; and as a solution to poverty -- exactly the stuff we do and teach in our LEAP program. More validation for something I believe passionately in and love to do and yes, I subscribed to that also.