Adelaide Road

Workshop 8: Chalk Farm Library under 5s

May 5, 2011

On March 18th, myself and senior librarian Nick Durant worked with the children and parents who were attending Chalk Farm library's under 5s rhyme time group. As well as the old Mother Goose classics, my own poems about bubbles were a big hit. Admittedly this may have been as much to do with the invitation to pop the bubbles I was blowing as to do with my poetry!
Still there's few things more inspiring than a room full of parents and small children enjoying discovering words together. Here's a poem I wrote about it. In my opinion, anyone who has doubts about the vital role libraries play in developing our sense of community should get along to one of these sessions to see for themselves.


Rhyme Time

Love is a small boy with a killer whale
in one hand and a dinosaur in the other,
speeding away on a rocking boat
with a princess behind him and an angel
in front. Perfectly balanced as their pink
and purple taffeta layers billow
in the breeze. They trail their silver
glitter slippers in the swirls of the magic carpet
as they row their dreams past crocodiles
and a golden house where the farmer's wife
is chased by three blind mice and a room
full of carefully choreographed incy wincy spiders
who dance up and down the water spout.
The stars twinkle overhead as French monks
sing on the moon before catching the last bus
back to the library where Polly is putting the kettle
on for tea and we all fall down in the zoom zoom
zoom of bubbles and roses and laughter

by Adelaide Road Participants  |  1 comment


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Comments

May 10, 10:50am
Barbara Saunders

Storytime is fantastic. When I returned from abroad after 13 years to live near Newham (say no more) for 4 years with two very young children, this was one of the places to make new friends. The saints who ran storytime read us books we'd never have unearthed for ourselves. Our kids virtually taught themselves to read.
When they started school, they didn't have to wade through 13 levels of Chip and Biff. They could choose. Learning to read and love books is a very different experience for those whose parents "leave it all to the school."
I'm a tutor of little kids/a pusher of regular book borrowing from the library, so hopefully their parents don't make them finish books they can't get into. They can explore. It's free.

But you have to understand the Government's viewpoint. After all, Gove wants to introduce set texts for schools. Cos these Mums hanging out with the other users, starting their kids on light recreational stuff are escaping their responsibilities! Soon their families will be heavy users, undermining the economy and thinking for themselves.

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