Reading to Boys

[Beavah 205]

Yah, so it's just too much fun to spin off a real scoutin' thread from an Issues & Politics post, so I couldn't resist.

 

In da original thread, Peregrinator mentions that he uses a Kindle to read to the boys on campouts at night before bed. Now, he's talkin' cub scouts, and there were several opinions about how it wouldn't work for Boy Scouts.

 

Except I've sat at camps with Scoutmasters who read stories to boys at night. One troop every year at camp their Scoutmaster would come with a different Patrick McManus book, and da lads were simply enthralled. They'd look forward to it each night, they'd beg for more.

 

So I'm curious... do yeh read to your Cub Scouts? What books or stories have yeh tried?

 

Do yeh read to your Boy Scouts ever? What have yeh tried?

 

Beavah

 

[Cambridgeskip 658]

When I ran cubs I used to read semi regularly and generally stuck to the Jungle Book. There are some fantastic stories in there, not just the Mowgli stories but many of the others as well. The tale of Rikki Tikki Tavi went down particularly well. It generally worked best when the kids were tired round the fire late in the evening. I used to get them to close their eyes and forget that they were in leafy, cool southern England but it was over a hundred years ago, they are in India, it's hot, it's humid and somewhere out there a wolf is walking through the trees....

 

I've never tried it with scouts though. My thought has always been that it wouldn't really work for that age group but I would be interested to hear, indeed would be pleased to hear, from someone that could prove me wrong.

[Peregrinator 85]

I don't know whether it might work for Scouts or not. I suspect it would depend on the story and who's telling it. Rikki-tikki-tavi is great for Cubs. Kotick the White Seal would be another good one. You can probably find more good stories at The Dump (http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/nonfict.html), e.g., "Woodsmoke at Twilight" - http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/woodsmoke.pdf

 

The one issue with using my Kindle was that bugs tended to gather 'round the reading light....

[NJCubScouter 1389]

I've never seen anyone read to Cubs or Scouts on a camping trip. Interesting idea for the Cubs. On Boy Scout camping trips I have seen the boys bring their own books. No, not what you may be thinking. There was one Scout (now in college) who brought things like computer programming books on weekend camping trips. Takes all kinds, right? But presumably now he is a whiz at computer programming because of the time spent in his tent reading. And then there are the Harry Potter books (speaking of spinning off from the other thread.) It seems that for a few years, the sequels were hitting the bookstores in July, right before summer camp (like sometimes 48 hours before departure) and and I saw more than one of those sequels at camp.

 

At my son's last summer camp his "free time" reading material was restricted to the maps and things he needed to plan his Eagle project, which he had to spend the rest of the summer planning.

[Eamonn 61]

I always used to bring my small radio.

Normally tuned into the BBC World Service.

Late at night they have a bedtime story.

A lot of the Scouts would hang out with me around the dying embers of the camp fire and listen to the stories.

Kind of a nice way to end the day.

Ea.

[Kahuna 172]

My only real Cub Scout experience was Day Camp back in the 1970s. We had a "quiet time" after lunch and I read to the boys from Julia Seton's book of stories. They liked it very much.

 

Never read to my Boy Scouts, but I used to tell them scary stories from H.P. Lovecraft and recite "The Cremation of Sam McGee" at campfires, or just a bedtime sitting around a lantern at summer camp. I guess they liked it. They would ask me on every camping trip for a story.

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

I think it takes a real special guy to pull this off with Boy Scouts. We had a SM once, great pipes, could do voices, loved the sound of the words, and he could hold them spell bound at a campfire for 20-30 minutes. Other guys, otherwise great SM's, and it would be boring...

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

I think it takes a real special guy to pull this off with Boy Scouts. We had a SM once, great pipes, could do voices, loved the sound of the words, and he could hold them spell bound at a campfire for 20-30 minutes. Other guys, otherwise great SM's, and it would be boring...