In this year-long qualitative case study of literacy teaching and learning, we utilized Bakhtin's ideas on speech genres in social contexts as a theoretical base for the analysis of a storybook read-aloud event. We first discuss Bakhtin's theories on language and literature and then apply the theories to a read-aloud activity in a kindergarten class. This classroom event involved the kindergarten teacher reading aloud, and the kindergarten children orally responding spontaneously during the reading. The teacher allowed the voices of the children and echoes of social language to enter into her performance as the class participated in a dialogic relationship.