Sigmund Brouwer in Ontario

SpongeBob Squarepants and Dobie Gray

As an author, speaking to a small group of students definitely has an upside. You’re able to interact a lot more closely, and you always get a lot of questions. On the other hand, as I mostly did on this tour, speaking in a gym to 300 students doesn’t allow for that kind of enjoyable involvement.

The compensation, however, comes in an increased energy level. To encourage kids to read as widely as possible, I try to make a simple point: a story succeeds when the reader begins to feel something, whether it’s suspense, fear, laughter, anger or any of a range of emotions.

To prove my point, I play music during stand-and-stretch breaks. I use a sound system that will rock the gym, and I invite the students to note how they react emotionally to different tunes, ranging from artists like Queen to Beethoven.

It’s easy to underscore the power of emotion when I crank the speaker for the theme song of SpongeBob Squarepants. From the first beat of the music, every student, even up to high school level, immediately and gleefully starts singing about living in a pineapple under the sea.

The most consistent highlights from the tour came when stories succeeded in generating emotional involvement, because when it happens with a larger group, the collective chemistry is amazing.

I’ll confess, however, that I can’t take any credit for some of the best goose bump moments of the tour – when 300-plus middle school students, and their teachers, standing in the gym, would raise their arms and sway together as they sang along with Drift Away by Dobie Gray.

Give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock and roll.

And isn’t that exactly what we want kids to discover about the joy of reading? Because when we think about our favourite books, we know that to get lost in a great story truly is a way to free our souls. . .