Speechification

If you’ve got kids, or you’ve been one, in the last thirty years you’ll probably have come across books by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. This is a thoroughly life affirming programme about a very decent man. There’s not much more to be said, except, you should listen. MP3 here.

In our house we are exceptionordinarily fond of Lauren Child and especially of Clarice Bean, her resourceful and funny character for 8-12 year-olds. I’ve read all three of the Clarice Bean novels to my older two kids and we really definitely can’t wait for her to write another one (although we suspect that her absolutely mega-blockbuster picture book brand Charlie & Lola is probably taking up all her time right now).

BBC7 just ran an excellent reading (by Elisha Mansuroglo) of Clarice Bean Spells Trouble in the early morning Big Toe Books slot (I keep meaning to put the show on while we’re having our breakfast. I wonder if a nice story might suppress the breakfast-time shouting and violence). So here, in a departure from our usual programmes with blokes talking about caves or electro music, is part one. There are seven parts all together and you can listen to them all on the Big Toe page until 23 April.

Another one from the archive. I’m going to attach a warning here. If you’re a parent (or just a bit sentimental - or, like me, both) you might want to skip this one. Kids miss their mums and dads when they’re away - even when they’re ‘away’ at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

Here’s a programme from June 2005 about a scheme that encourages incarcerated parents to record stories for their kids at home. Even parents who can’t read can join in: storytellers help them to come up with their own stories for the tapes. Sometimes they sing. It’s heartbreaking, really. And thought-provoking (what do we do to a family when we take a parent away and lock her or him up?). MP3.

Here’s something from the archive. A programme from Radio 3’s long-running feature series Between the Ears. I recorded it in January 2003.

This edition is pretty grim on paper: a kind of meditation on the death of children, putting together stories from parents who’ve lost children (including David Harrington from the Kronos Quartet) with Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (a heartbreaking setting of poems by Rückert written on the death of one of his children).

I hesitated to put this one up because, speaking as a parent, it’s quite hard to listen to but there’s nothing gratuitous about it, it’s put together beautifully and there’s real insight. I’d like to link to the programme’s web page but Radio 3’s archive only goes back as far as 2004. Here’s the MP3.

The photo of Mahler, taken in 1909, is from the Wikimedia Commons.