Voices.

Usually, my storytime voices are premeditated, and I've got a whole catalog of them. Thanks to a misspent youth watching BBC adaptations, I can do a passable British accent, and I can also go south of Mason Dixon if need be. I've got my child voice, my mom voice, my monotone Bored Potato voice. I remember taking the time and energy of an audiobook narrator to ensure that each of my voices of Mac Barnett's Chloe and the Lion - still one of my favorite read-alouds - was truly distinctive.

Sometimes, though, voices just come out. Unbidden.

Case in point: I laid my hands on a slightly older title this week: Big Plans, by Bob Shea and illustrated by Lane Smith. You'll know Bob Shea as the man who recently gave us Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great and the Dinosaur vs. series, and Lane Smith, well, you'll just know*. I read this one aloud to myself at home (like you do) and found myself using a voice that was a strange blend of Katharine Hepburn, John F. Kennedy, and John Lithgow when he gets all crazy eyes. (Or as my friend Michele says, "The best kind of John Lithgow.")

This unexpected voice thing has happened to me before only one other time - when my monster from Peter McCarty's Jeremy Draws a Monster suddenly started using what one bystander described as a very thick Bronx accent. (I've never been to the Bronx, so I can neither confirm nor deny this.)

I hope this is the kind of thing that happens to other people.

*Although I'm slowly coming to understand through conversations with non-librarian friends that although children's authors and illustrators are my rock stars, they're not necessarily everyone's.