I’m Cindee Talley. Today, I’d like you to meet two of my Radio Reader Book Club Friends.. Kathi Holt and teacher, Lynn Hewes. They’re sitting around the table at the historic Cimarron Hotel, talking about our current read… Plainsong.
Their chat is a perfect example of the paying attention.. whether it be to our children, or our surroundings. These two lovely women are so engrossed in their conversation, they had no idea they had captured the sound of a semi going by. Kathleen starts the conversation:
Kathleen Holt: Is there a place in our lives these days for parents and adolescents or adults and adolescents to discuss literature – to explore how we might look at this differently or similarly?
Lynne Hewes: You know, that’s an interesting question. I would like to have my first thought be a happy, optimistic answer, but I don’t know that that’s really the way I feel. One of my favorite students several years ago told me that he just loved his time in the evening with his parents. He had two younger brothers and the family would all have dinner together and then the younger brothers wer put to bed and he’d have – the teenaged boy, my student – would sit around the kitchen and visit with his mother and dad. He absolutely loved that time when he got to visit with his mom and dad. And then, then he said, it is different. He said my mom got Facebook and my dad got Facebook. And, so what happens after the little boys are put to bed, my mom goes into one room to be on her Facebook and my dad goes into another room to be on his Facebook and I’m left in the kitchen all by myself with nobody to talk to.
Kathleen Holt: That just reminded me exactly of the situation between the McPheron brothers and Victoria after supper, the conversations after supper.
Lynne Hewes: Right, and so they don’t know how to talk to a teenager. So, they have to talk about the markets, the cattle markets and the futures markets and she has absolutely idea what they are talking about, but they are making an attempt to communicate. On both sides. Victoria is making an attempt to communicate with them and they are making an attempt to communicate with her and it doesn’t matter if she does not have any clue what they are talking about. At least they are making an attempt to connect with one another. I like that scene in the book.
Kathleen Holt: So, as a teacher, would you recommend Plainsong as a book that might support some kind of interaction or engagement between adults and young people as a catalyst for discussion?
Lynne Hewes: Yes, there are so many times when Guthrie’s boys, Ike and Bobby – I don’t know, I feel like they want to talk with him and he is either too busy or just doesn’t know how to relate to kids. He cares about them. He loves them. That’s obvious. But, I just think there needs to be more of a connection with them. He needs to listen to those kids and find out what is going on in their lives. They are doing a whole lot of things that he doesn’t even know that he doesn’t even know that they are doing . I think maybe an adult reading this book would think, “Whoa. What are my kids doing? Have I been listening to what they are saying enough lately?” That might be a good thing.
