Punching Up Story-Time

July 9, 2001 - Children love stories. And anytime an adult will take the time to take a book and read to them, that adult suddenly finds themselves in the midst of a captivated audience. Stories themselves can be a lot of fun, but some people just tell stories better than others. We’ve all noticed that when it comes to telling jokes. We’ve got friends who can tell a joke, and friends who can’t. And it’s the ones who can whom we love to listen to. But for children, that’s not necessarily a setback. However, it’s always good to have someone who really knows how to tell a story.

Barbara Mari is just one of those story tellers. Once a month she volunteers down at her local library to read to the kids for the library’s sanctioned story time. But Barbara does more than just sit in front of the kids and read the story from the book, occasionally showing the kids pictures. She’s figured out a way to really punch up her stories so that the kids will really find themselves engrossed, a part of the story itself. And it starts with ActiveHome.

"I like to include special effects, and sound effects in my stories," Barbara says. "I like to kind of punch them up." And she talks about how she does it. "I use colored lights, and a tape of sound effects," Barbara says. "I hook up my lamp modules to a power strip and I control the lights that way." So while she’s telling the story, when the sun goes down, Barbara dims the lights, and when it’s daylight, she lights another lamp. When it’s supposed to get scary, Barbara can make the lights dim. She also uses different colored lamps to emphasize different parts of the storyline.

"The most fun I have is with the sound effects," Barbara says. "I have all my sound effects recorded for that story, and when something happens in the story, like a dish falling, or a car skidding by or something like that, I hit the ActiveHome Remote and the kids just jump when they hear it. Now they want sound effects to everything in the story." Which may be just a little hard to do if Barbara ever decides to read a Dr. Seuss masterpiece, like the Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham.

"I can’t believe how amazed the kids are when something happens out of the blue in the story," she says. "It’s almost as if they think I’m magic." Well it’s not really magic, it’s ActiveHome... but I guess that’s just a matter of semantics.

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