Now I work as a specialty performer with the Metropolitan opera. If you go to the opera and see someone doing something other than singing, that might be me. Juggling, Fire eating, stunts, acrobatic random skills of all sorts. But before the opera books filled my life. Books were a huge part of my childhood. My parents read to my sister and I every day. My grandmother read to us too, but she lived a long way away. So this is what she would do. She’d get a book like this one. Look To Zephyrs from Grandma Goose (we all called her grandma goose) 1977. Then she’d record herself reading the book onto one of these old cassette tapes. I was always so excited when a package of books and tapes arrived from Grandma. Fast forward 40 years and I have a little niece. We unpacked Grandma’s old books but the tapes had degraded beyond repair. That’s when I started thinking. Wouldn’t it be amazing if my little niece could hear her great grandmother read to her. Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were a book with something integrated that would let you record your own voice reading the story. Something that wouldn’t degrade or become obsolete. An easy way for a child to hear a loved one read to them when they couldn’t be together or even across the years. But I’m not an engineer. I didn’t have the vaguest idea how to build something like that or even if it was possible. The idea moved to the back of my head along with countless other ideas. Until a few years later and we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. It’s painfully obvious just how important being able to connect across distance really is. I started to think about this idea again. Something else was different too. Now Arden was a part of my life.
Stay tuned for part II how the Read To Me Recordable Book Buddy became a reality.
