What voices do you do when you're reading to your children?

[plantsitter]

I realised today, when I was reading the DDs 'The Tiger who came to Tea' and giving the mother her usual very posh but ever-so-slightly-drunk voice, that when other people read it she may well have a completely different personality. This blew my mind a bit so I thought I would see what other people's book voices were like.

I make 'The Cat in the Hat' have a cockney wide-boy voice and the fish is a nervy broad Yorkshire (my neck of the woods).

What are yours?

In our house Sir Percy Pilkington (a bold and fearless knight from Charlie Cook's Favourite Book) sounds a bit like Brian Blessed. The Gruffalo used to sound as if he was from Birmingham (until ds got a bit confused with the dvd version being done by Robbie Coltrane).

This made me guffaw! I also make the mum in Tiger v posh, but hadn't thought about making her drunk!!

I like The Bear Snores On and do a nerdy/John Major/Ken Livingstone type voice for the mole (actually all my moles sound the same!), The Gruffalo is a cockney, and all snakes sound snidey.

Great post :)

Thanks :)

Interesting Gruffalo variations. I've got Robbie Coltrane's from the BBC film stuck in my head since I saw that, but I don't attempt a Scottish accent. Just a bit of a growl.

The tiger is always a fully on brummie.

Smartest giant in town is a bit like Frank Spencer.

The Gruffalo sounds like a mafia boss.

My Gruffalo is a growly voice, but with a south London twang to it. My two favourites to do are 'The Snail and the Whale' in which the snail has a high pitched squeak and the whale has a low, slow voice and even other snails have different voices eg posh, Scottish, gruff and 'Tiddler: The Storytelling Fish' with my personal favourite, the Bristolian plaice.

I love story time more than DS1 I think, and anyone else who had to read to him hates me as they must do voices or face DS1's wrath.

My gruffalo is west country, owl very posh and female for some reason, fox is a cockney and snake hisses all his s's. Stick man is very weedy and plaintive.

The Gruffalo's Child always sounds like Jane Horrocks, as Bubble in Ab Fab, in our house. I have no idea why!

"What does he looook liiiiike? Tells us Dad. Is hi turribly big and turribly bad?"

I think it's the fact they're having proper tea at tea-time that makes the mother in 'The Tiger..' posh - that and that daddy would want 'supper'.

DH's Dragon from 'Room on the Broom' is deep and growly and genuinely terrifying - DD won't let him read it any more. DH is secretly pleased 'cos the growly voice gave him a sore throat.

I like reading 'not last nght but the night before' in a cockney rap style

The "How To Train Your Dragon" books are excellent for practising a variety of voices. I do Hiccup as a younger version of me, Fishlegs the same but a bit higher-pitched and more nervous, Stoick The Vast as Brian Blessed and Gobber the Belch as a growling cockney for some reason. It just seems to fit.

Yes, to Stoick as Brian Blessed, but my Gobber the Belch is more the sergeant major out of 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum'. Snotlout is a kind of nasal sneer, and Gumboil (Madguts the Murderous spokesman) is a sort of throaty-whispering Liverpudlian. Scarily enough that's how David Tennant does him in the audio books as well, and I chose that voice before I ever heard the CDs...

I'm also doing Terry Pratchett's Witches series - Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are both kind of Suffolk bur (because that's where I live), whilst Detritus the troll is sort of Eastern European. Genuans sound a bit French, and Salzella from 'Maskerade' is a sort of bombastic cut-glass posh voice (takes lots of air, hard work).

I love doing the voices.

I do the Gruffalo as a growly Welsh (where I come from) and the mouse is cockney. The owl is a very posh man and the snake is a hissing, posh woman.

Winnie the Witch has a Yorkshire accent, I don't know why, and Horrid Henry has a South London accent. The Tiger has a Cornish accent. When DD1 read those books aloud to me, she tried to copy my accents. It was very hard not to laugh. Her Welsh imitation sounded like a bad-tempered Liverpudlian with American mixed in- I don't know how she managed it. Nowadays she can do a quite passable Yorkshire and Welsh accent, and I'm working on Cornish.

Good post! Because I can relate to it mainly. DS has started doing impressions of my broad Texan for Mr Jumbo in 'Topsy and Tim Visit the Tower of London'

Lighthouse Keeper and wife are Cornish.
Katie Morag and the others are obviously Scottish.
Tiger who came to tea has a low, woolly kind of voice.
Scary Sid is kind of Ray Winstone.
Charlie and Lola are direct impersonations of the children that do the show.