This text is for you who want to read a silent book with/for other people - at work or at home, children or adults. If you are used to reading traditional picturebooks with text, silent books can be a little daunting. At first, it might seem almost impossible to navigate the visual landscape without the kind of "compass" a written text provides. This might be the reason why so many people, with the very best intentions, try to make up "recipes" for silent book mediations: Do this first, then that, step 1, 2, 3 and all will be well. .This text is an argument for why this might be a bad idea, especially if your goal is to unlock the literary and aestethic potential that silent books provide. 

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First, a disclaimer. This is in no way a critique of the well-meant "recipes" out there, they are all made with the best of intentions. I must admit to have written one or two myself when I first started my silent book adventure, in an attempt to please workshop-participants or readers looking for an easy route. But I soon discovered that by doing so, I overlooked two important factors that are essential in order to unlock the silent books aesthetic and communicative potential:

Factor one: Who are you reading for?
There is a very big difference of being a teacher that sees it´s "audience" every day, and being a librarian or a performer that only meets them once. As a teacher, you know your group. You have plenty of time to read and re-read the book as many times as necessary. If you want to, you can spend a week just introducing the book, leaving little clues around like treasures for the children to find, making them hold their breath with anticipation when the book is finally introduced. You have time for all the children´s voices to be heard, and the knowledge needed to also include those who do not share the spoken language.

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As a performer/storyteller/librarian you often only meet the children once. You will usually have little pre-excisting knowledge of the group, apart from their age and the number of people coming. There is not enough time to let everyone chime in on the meaning-making, and you will usually have no idea of the language repetoires available, or if there are children with special needs to be considered. What you do have, is the advantage of being a "special occasion", an out-of-the ordinary experience the children look forward to. You probably have more equipment and a better stage or reading room at hand, and you have the artistic skills to surprise and amaze the children.

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As you can see, a step-by-step guide meant for a teacher, will usually not work for a performer, and vice-versa. The settings are just too different. Both roles provide both opportunities and challenges, but they are different, and it is important to plan thereafter. 

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Factor two: What book are you reading?
The problem with the universal step-by-step recipes is that they usually only work on the more traditional silent books, those that are in many ways similar to traditional picture books with text. Don´t believe me? Well, go try the bullet point advice on Bruno Munari´s "Libro illegibile", Warja Lavater´s "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" or Julie Safirsteins "Bloom" and you´ll get my point. The proof is also in the pudding: The sites that provide this kind of advice tend to also recommend more traditional titles. Many of these books are wonderful, but it still makes you miss out. Both you as a mediator, and the children you are reading for, miss the many great opportunities the silent book world provides to be amazed: By original artistic expressions, by the book as an object of art and by trying to make sense of a book-like object none of you have seen before. 

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So what to do?​

Instead of trusting the easy short-cuts, my advice is to trust your own professional competence, the characteristics of the particular book you want to read and the resources that are in you audience. Together, you will make it work. You might need to train your own visual literacy, your ability to read, understand, interpret and express yourself in pictures.

 

Reading a lot of silent books will do that, if you get yourself familiar with a wide range of silent book titles, studying them will improve your visual literacy, and with a deeper understanding, you will be a better mediator when reading the book to others. Remember silent books takes time, it takes time to navigate through the visual landscapes and find your path(s) in each new title. Browsing our book reviews is a wonderful way to get to know both old and new silent book titles from all over the world.

 

Not being caugh up in the "correct" way to do it, will free your heart and attention so that you can point it towards the book and children at hand instead. You don´t need the reading to be flawless, you need to be connected, both to the possibilites of the book and to the hearts in the audience.​​

I will add more parts to this with time, but no step-by-step guides :-)  Stay tuned for updates! Want a silent book workshop? Click here!​​​​