You're listening to the Read Aloud Revival Podcast.

This is the podcast that inspires you'm your host, Sarah McKenzie. Thanks for being here. Today, I'm sharing the rest of the conversation I had with Jim Weiss from Great Hall Productions. In episode four, he gave us

some great tips for character voices and helped us with some ideas for generally improving

our skill as storytellers. It was a fantastic conversation. If you missed it, make sure you go listen

and you can find that episode at read aloud revival.com. Just look for the button that says

episode four. In today's episode, Jim shares a little more of his heart. I think you're going to be

really inspired by what he has to say. We aren't going to be perfect at reading aloud or really

at any part of parenting. So we can listen in and get encouraged and inspired by what Jim has to say about that.

Okay, here's the rest of that conversation with Jim.

So I've heard you talk a bit about the need for parents to take the pressure off.

You know, we feel like we need to be perfect storytellers or,

um, or do this just right. And I think sometimes we create this vision of reading aloud that we're,

you know, we, maybe we're sipping tea and our toddlers are playing quietly at our feet. And I mean,

um, we have kind of this ideal story time, and when we can't make that

happen, we get frustrated.

So can you speak a little bit to that need for us to let go of the ideal of perfection?

Sure.

Well, first of all, let me just put a little note in here.

When you're telling stories, it doesn't or reading aloud

to your child and both of them are wonderful i mean they're not telling a story in your own words

doesn't mean that you stop reading to your kids i mean you kids is just so valuable sometimes

you want to read out loud sometimes you want to tell sometimes you want to read loud, but there's a page that you know is going to be too scary or too complex, and you decide, I'm going to paraphrase this one page.

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