Speaking Volumes

   There are so many wonderful books published that I cannot possibly keep up with them all.  I’m always amazed at the books I miss purchasing for our library collection. A recent omission, but one that will be remedied today is
 
Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps, Dave Isay, Editor
 
For those of you not familiar with StoryCorp, it is the brainchild of Dave Isay and is based on a few basic principles:
 
That our stories, the stories of everyday people, are as interesting and important as the celebrity stories that we’re bombarded with every moment of the day.
 
That if we take the time to listen, we’ll find wisdom, wonder and poetry in the stories of people all around us.
 
That we all want to know our lives have mattered and we won’t ever be forgotten
 
That listening is an act of love.
 
I love the idea of this. I’ve always wanted to record an interview with my parents, but you know how good intentions get away from you and I never did. My mom passed away this past January and how I wish I had made that video recording. At least we have a small clip of her talking and laughing at my nephew’s wedding. Storycorp might have been the ticket.
 
It’s fairly easy to tell your story and have it saved for posterity.  First you’ll need to decide the story you want told. Is it your grandmother’s, mother, father, whomever. And then you’ll need to make an appointment to record your story in one of the the Storycorp mobile booths. You can find out where they’ll be by visiting the Storycorp site at
http://storycorps.org/record-your-story/locations/
 
Mr. Isay had little trouble convincing The Library of Congress to be the keeper of the over 16,000 stories that have already been compiled. They are located on the LOC site, in the American Folklore Center, http://www.loc.gov/folklife/. Excerpts of interviews can be listened to each Friday morning on NPR’s Morning Edition.

You can read the stories at both The Storycorp and Library of Congress websites as well as in the book collections:
 
Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the Storycorps Project
Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps

I’m purchasing both for Saxton B., for Mother’s Day, in memory of my mom, Claudia Jean Ponte.