Storybook focuses on lost art of listening

Put down the cell phone, log off Facebook, and listen — really listen.

That’s the lesson of Whitefish author Ina Albert’s new story book “Granny Greeny Says Listen Louder.”

The lost skill of listening, Albert says, is one solution to today’s attention deficit society that is overwhelmed with technology.

“You’re looking at everybody on Facebook and seeing what they’re doing, but the face-to-face and heart-to-heart is not happening,” Albert said. “How can we understand one another, really, unless we have that connection?”

Through the storybook, Granny Greeny learns how to “listen louder” and connect with others.

“Her eyes never move from your face, her head never moves, her feet don’t tap,” Albert explains. “She listens with a heart full of love.”

Albert, 79, says the book’s lesson is intergenerational and hits home with adults. Albert says she, too, had to learn to connect with her own grandchildren.

“When I was a child, the few adults that listened to me and asked me what I thought, they were the ones that made an impression on me. I felt visible,” she said.

“If I really want to connect with my grandchildren and get their attention away from their phones, tweeting, texting — and really be with them — I have to be a good grandma and be interested in them.”

A question and answer game at the end of the book aims to spark a relationship between the adult and child.

“The children are participating and not being told,” Albert said the game. “It helps create that relationship.”

Illustrator Bret Schlesinger created the sketches in the book that are base on the farm and zoo in Chicago.

Albert will make an appearance as Granny Greeny at Imagination Station in Whitefish on Saturday, Nov. 1 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. She will sign books and listen to children during the visit.

A celebration of the book is set for Nov. 8 at 6 p.m. at Good Medicine Lodge. Soup, snacks and music from Betsi Morrison and Luke Walrath.

The book is available in paperback on Amazon, as an Ebook on Kindle, and as an audio version on Audible.