Thurrock Library Service has started its first Read Aloud group at Grays Library, Orsett Road.
The group offers adults the chance to listen to a story and share their experience of it with others in the group. Such shared reading encourages a real appreciation and enjoyment of literature and does not depend on an individual’s knowledge of a book.
The main ethos of the group is that all viewpoints are valid – there is no right or wrong way to the enjoyment and understanding of what is being read.
The first session included a reading of an exciting short story by Doris Lessing called The Tunnel. It follows the relationship between a widowed mother and her son while on holiday abroad and a gruelling rite of passage he must go through as he experiences growing up.
The poem, The Writer, by Richard Wilbur closed the session and reactions to it were ‘very variable’, said one participant.
The next meeting is on Friday, 27 January at 10.30am and future sessions will be on the second and fourth Friday of the month at Grays Library.
For further information please contact, Rachel Gallehawk on 01375 413970.
