秋晴れの爽やかな一日、午前8時過ぎに丘の上の中学校へ向かいました。朝の読み聞かせです。「ぼくは川のように話す」。これはジョーダン・スコットというカナダの詩人による「吃音」の少年を描いた絵本です。作者自身の体験です。
教室に入って、吃音と書いて読める生徒がいなかったので「きつおん」と読み方を書き、それでも意味が分からないようだったので「話し始めのタイミング障害」=「どもる」と補足して読み始めました。インパクトのある絵と原作の英語を原田勝氏が日本語訳にした大変いい本です。最後に著者自身の後書きも読み加えました。
吃音で悩み学校でもいじめられる少年が、川のそばで父親に「川の水。あれが、おまえの話し方だ」と言われます。川は自分より大きなもの、広い場所をめざして、気負わず、たゆまず流れていく。だけど途中で泡立って、渦巻いて、波をうち、砕けていく。そして、急流の先でゆったりと流れ、なめらかに光る川となる。これが僕の話し方。川だってどもってる。こうして少年は自身の障害に納得し自信を持つようになります。
後書きに、「自分にしか分からない恐ろしいものを言葉にするためのイメージや表現があることを知った。父が吃音を自然の中の動きにたとえてくれたおかげで、自分の口が勝手に動くのを感じるのが楽しくなった。」と書いています。吃音でなくても、話すことにコンプレックスがあったり、話すことを避けている思春期の中学生は少なからずいるはずです。そんな子供たちへの応援歌となれば幸いです。
It was a refreshing autumn day. After 8 am, I went to the local junior highschool which stands on a hill in order to give storytelling for the students. The title of the book was ”I Talk Like a River" by Jordan Scott/ Smith Sydney and it is a story about a boy who is a stutterer and it was the written author's actual experience.
In the classroom, I wrote the word "stuttering" in Chinese letters, but since nobody knew the word, I wrote how to read it and the meaning like "it is a timing problem when people start to speak" and added the common name. All the pictures are very impressive and the translation into Japanese is also very good.
The boy is bullied at his school because of stuttering. One day his father took him to the river and pointed at the river and said "Look at the river flow. your way of speaking is just like that.". The river flows toward a bigger and wider place without feeling pressured and continuing. It, however, bubbles, swirls, undulates and breaks in the middle of flow. Beyond the rapid stream, it flows relaxingly and becomes a smooth shining river. The boy thought it was his way of talking and the river was also stuttering. He accepts his difficulty and has confidence.
The author wrote in his afterword that he found the image or the way of expression other than the word which he felt frightening. He also wrote that because his father compared his difficulty to the movement of nature, it really made me feel lighter and I was able to enjoy the feeling that my mouth moves on its own.
There must be some young students who are not stutterers but have a complex about a way of talking and therefore avoid talking. I hope this book encourages them.