Diamonds and Rust

Some days are diamonds, some days are rust.
This Friday looked like rust. It had been raining all night and wasn’t ready to stop, at least that was a little better than the snow which had forced the cancellation of the storytime session the first time round, no one had turned up!
So the rust continued, I made my way to All Angels. High Glen Children’s Centre were holding the session there but I hadn’t been able to confirm it was still on.
Rust when I was talking to the school secretary
“I’m here from the library to share some stories with Jo's group from High Glen.”
“Oh are you now.” Was the reply, in the tone that implies, without the need for words “I know nothing about this, the group you mention, or High Glen if it comes to that.”
What she did say was
“Take a seat please.”
Rust, rust, rust.
I looked at the goldfish in the octagonal, tall tank. I knew just how they felt.
A mum came through from school
“Jo sent me through; I’m wanting to be a volunteer.”
“Oh are you now,” said the secretary, “Take a seat please.”
Rust, rust.

The mum sized me up.
“Hello! My girls loved your scary story, they keep retelling it between themselves, and they don’t stop.”
The rust starts to lift.
“Oh, that’s good, that sounds like Scary Sid; I’ve brought him with me today.”
With that the secretary leads me through to the music room, a small group of mums and their pre school children are playing, surrounded by drums. Three children from the school, aged about ten, are using the computers in the corner.
“Oh, hello again,” says one of the mums, “We saw you at Ringmoor on Monday.”
“You’ll be used to the stories then, some of them are the same today.”
“Oh that’s good, we really enjoyed them, didn’t we, Jack?”
The rust is lifting, a glitter of diamond can be seen.
So we sit down for stories, five mums in their saris, three in their jogging pants, two workers in their official embroidered sweatshirts and eight children, all slightly soggy with rain.
“Muddlewitch Does Magic Tricks” is first and I can see the baby who is no more than a few weeks old keeping time with the beat as we all say Abracadabra. Ab wave bra wave cad wave ab wave bra wave.
Next it’s “You’re Not So Scary Sid” and the mums lead the roars as we all scare Sid and make him cry. Everyone laughs as Sid blows his nose on my hand and I have to wipe that on my trousers (it’s only make believe, no tissues were harmed in the telling of this story)
“The Wide-Mouthed Frog” follows. “Frog” says one of the youngest boys, who doesn’t have English as his first language. I can see the three ten year olds at the back have given up on the computers and are joining in with us, putting their fingers in their mouths to make wide-mouthed frogs. The range of wide-mouthed frogs in front of me is fantastic
The final story is “Stone Soup” I use an old saucepan, plastic vegetables and my Red Hen and Big Bad Wolf puppets for that. Everyone joins in with the stirring of the soup, except for the boy who is frightened of the Big Bad Wolf, once the story is over, the Surestart worker borrows the Wolf puppet and soon the child is friends with the wolf, stroking his fur and giving him a kiss. The other children carry on stirring the soup and taste it at regular intervals.
While this is happening one mum is asking
“Is this form for the Town Library?”
“Yes, if you want books for your children it’s best to let them have their own ticket – you don’t pay fines if they are overdue then. You want to join too? Great, do you have internet access at home? We can set you up with a pin number when you join – that’s another way of renewing your books. You can also reserve books online once you have that.”
“So I can get Scary Sid put by for me at The Town Library from home? That’s good”
The Big Bad Wolf and Red Hen go back in their bag, the soup is all finished, and the books are packed away. The session is over. It is still raining outside.
Some days are rust but some days are diamonds

Multi Cultural Stories

This year sees 400 years of the King James Bible. Margaret Smith is our local Methodist Minister and she wanted to celebrate this fact. To cut a long story short, Margaret, Shahzad and myself got together to celebrate the cultural diversity of the borough of Rochdale through stories from different faiths and cultures
I wish I had been recording the session at Balderstone, the storytellers and the families from many different cultures all laughing out loud together and really enjoying the shared experience. We have two more storytimes planned, I can't wait!

C.J. The Library Cat

It's that time of year again when the Summer Clubs are running. I've been to Redwood School who are providing the venue for the Summer Club for PMLD (Profound Multiple Learning Difficulties) children in Rochdale.
This is, I think, the third year I've been able to take along my Bag Books selection http://www.bagbooks.org/
They are incredible multi sensory stories specially designed for PMLD children. I like to think I'm getting really experienced storytelling with them now.
Today it was C.J. The Library Cat, there were about a dozen children and the same number of carers. I saw a smile on everyones face today, so I consider that a job well done. The biggest smiles came from the part of the story where the snow is covering C.J. At that point each child is draped with a net curtain with mini "snowballs" sewn to it. Second best result today was the reaction to the squeaky toys, where C.J. hides in the children's library.
I always feel I've really achieved something when I see the children enjoying the story so much.

Storytelling Works - Official!

I've reproduced an article from "The Bookseller" that makes me sure my work is valuable as well as providing a happy, feel good time.
Here it is

20.06.11 The Bookseller Caroline Horn
New research by the Institute for Social & Economic Research has revealed daily storytime sessions with pre-school children significantly improves their cognitive skills and reduces their socioemotional difficulties by the age of five.
The research studied 15,000 children at ages three and five and analysed the impact that the home environment had on their development at this stage. Researcher Yvonne Kelly said: “We wanted to see what elements of home learning and the macro climate at home help to explain the gap between the development of the poorest children and the richest children.”
Researchers gathered data on a range of issues in the home environment, from how noisy and tidy it was to the carer’s teaching and disciplining strategies. When all the data was analysed, Kelly said: “We found that the strongest projector of childhood development, including their socioemotional development and cognitive skills, was reading to children on a daily basis. It is one of the strongest predictors of these outcomes, even when everything else is taken into consideration.”
The report suggested: “If half or all of the 5-year-old children who were read to less than daily were instead read to on a daily basis there would be corresponding 10% and 20% reductions in the proportion of 5 year olds with socioemotional difficulties.”
Kelly added: “There is something about the strongly transactional element of storytelling that makes it important; adult and child snuggle up close, think about the pictures together and what might happen next. It also provides one-on-one, intimate time between carer and child.”