Chatterbooks

I got the kids up and dressed and breakfasted this morning before any of us were really ready on the basis that we had to be at SJA HQ for planning next term’s programme and tidying out the Badger room and cupboards. I have to say there does seem to be rather more committment to this Badger Leader malarkey than was made clear in the beginning… but Julie, who is 40 this year and old enough to know better sends text messages in txt spk and despite sending me one yesterday afternoon ‘stl on 4 2moro?’ and ‘gr8’ when I replied in the positive, had sent me a message this morning to say ‘sry hv 2 cncl 2day. sry 4 srt notice’. So we were up earlier than required for no reason. Grr.

So Davies xboxed, Tarly played with her playmobil and I blogged the weekend. 🙂 And drank tea :). And tried not to stress about Chatterbooks which suddenly seemed like a really stupid idea.

I processed some laundry and then we nipped up to Sainsburys for food supplies for home and refreshments for Chatterbooks (which reminds me I need to claim that back next time I’m in work) and came home for lunch before going to the library.

Not sure how much I’ve mentioned Chatterbooks on here so I’ll give a potted history of the whole thing, feel free to skip it (like anyone reads the whole blog posts anyway 😉 ).

I’ve always felt the library (specifically Lancing, the one I work in) fails children of Davies and Scarlett’s age rather. We are great at getting them in really young for Baby Rhyme Time (birth-18 months ish) and keeping them for that pre-school, introduction to books age with Storytime (technically for under 5s but in actual fact it tends to be 18 months – 3.5 years when they start pre-school) and until fairly recently we did run a twice-weekly Homework Club for 10-13 year olds (ish) where we gave assisted help in finding books, using the internet, free photocopying and printing and so on although we stopped that last year as we weren’t getting any attendees week in, week out. I think the Summer Reading Challenge is great (despite personal, philosophical stand point on reading for rewards of stickers etc.) but it’s only for 6 weeks of the year and then I feel we leave that age to flounder on until the following summer. Of course schools and indeed parents have a huge role to play in fostering a love of books for kids but I think the library does too. And I think the library role is less clearly defined as it’s not about ‘literacy’ or turning reading into work, it’s about recreational reading, books for the love of books, celebrating reading for fun, for pleasure, for educational value if you like but ultimately being there for whatever reason adults come to the library to borrow books for children aswell. The next generation of library users. I believe that children are the future etc. (I can’t hit those high notes and you’re supposed to be being quiet in the library ;)).

So, flushed with how fab the Summer Reading Game could be after my first summer at the library I started asking about what else we could do for those lost years. I specifically wanted to do a kids reading group, same format as the adult one I go to at the library, maybe without the wine, where everyone reads the same book, or books on the same theme and comes back once a month to chat about it. What you loved, what you hated, whether you wanted to burn the book or find everything else that author had ever written, that sort of thing.

I mooted the idea and was initially supported but quickly knocked back. I then put together more of a proposal suggesting I be paid or come on voluntarily, suggesting a time and day that would suit me, designed a plan of how it all might work. I was again listened to and then knocked back with a sort of consolation prize of maybe one craft based event during half term, perhaps with a Halloween theme? Nothing more was ever said and the Poetry Event for kids I was superficially encouraged on never went any further. I heard whispers that they were worried about setting something up that I personally might not always be around to carry on, that I’d put people’s backs up by getting above myself and suspect there is a level of suspicion around me that I am rather too good at my job and may be after other people’s and that I am a bit of a maverick and couldn’t really just be left unsupervised to do these sorts of things. At the time I was pretty pissed off and said so but left it there.

Fast forward a few months and Davies and Scarlett started a Home Ed reading group anyway which negated one of my big reasons for wanting to do it, but I heard about the Chatterbooks group that Chloe goes to and realised that my idea tied in pretty well with a national initiative that many library services were buying in to. So I spoke to the very young, very enthusiastic librarian that I get on well with about Chatterbooks, shared with her the ideas I’d had before and how I’d been knocked back and off she went championing the cause. I ran a couple of events with her (Halloween last year, the My Story event, two Christmas late night shopping events) and she managed to get the right people on board and push through a Chatterbooks-of-sorts type idea.

So, my motivation for the whole thing is multi-reasoned. 1. As ever, about Davies and Scarlett. I can see that this is something they’d get a lot out of, they love being read to, books are very often the catalyst for art, models and games for them, I think they’d enjoy talking to others about books they liked, it would be great socially for them to be with their peers age-wise locally in an informal, sociable setting rather than the classroomyness of Badgers, but with the structure of organised activities. 2. It’s yet another thing to note down for both the children and I went the inspector comes knocking. Out there, in the community, mixing with other children, doing literacy based stuff, me clearly giving headspace to all of the above and being a Good Little Home Ed Parent. 3. Blatant self promotion – one way or another this goes on my CV for career progression, either in the library or to take elsewhere – I’m being proactive, progressive, inventive, creative, working with different groups of people, increasing business potential, working as a volunteer, increasing my work with children etc. and finally 4. It’s all about Customer Service. I genuinely am passionate about customer service. Every job I’ve ever had, everything I ever take on in life I strive to do to the best of my ability – Home Ed is for me, parenting to the upmost, running Chatterbooks is for me being a Library Assistant to my upmost – I’ve seen something which we lack in our service offering, it’s within my power to make it available and I’m doing so. It’s something I am capable of, will be good at and a new challenge to keep the role fresh and interesting for me.

Of course the library has it’s own agenda and whilst my model was as described above – monthly meet up to talk about a book the powers that be decreed we should run a short burst of book based craft and activity sessions – six sessions in six weeks. Two previous Chatterbooks sessions have run in West Sussex library service – one was a monthly set up similar to what I want to do but over a finite six month period, the second was run in a local school by a library staff member. Neither were very successful for various reasons. The plan is to run this one as another style of Chatterbooks and eventually come up with a model for various types including different age groups, short bursts, longer terms, possibly special needs groups and a variety of target audiences including good readers, slow readers, areas of social deprivation and so on.

So with me as a ‘willing volunteer’ six one hour sessions have been booked, I’ve driven the ages (I chose 7 to 9 years simply because that puts Scarlett at one end and Davies at the other), I’ve produced the plans for the first and second sessions – it’s my intention to plan the further four sessions with the kids themselves although I have some ideas to throw in if needed and whilst I have been told I will always have to have another, more senior member of staff with me I have dazzled them enough with visions of what I aim to achieve that I am being supported rather than directed.

It’s not ideal, I think weekly is too frequent and I think six sessions is too few, given there is an ongoing need and demand for such a group, particularly a free one ;). But I’m happy to give my time for these six weeks and hit them with a demand for paying me if they want to do it again. Or indeed consideration for a proper job role at some future point delivering these county-wide.

So we set the dates, put up posters and decided on 12 spaces. We filled those 12 spaces twice over within a week and have a full waiting list for if we do it again, along with two written requests for something similar for the older age group. I think I have proved my point about demand for it ;).

I decided the first session should be about how the kids choose books. We had various other things to cover too but that was the theme. So Davies, Scarlett and I, along with Russell, who is the senior children’s librarian got busy with setting out various things, photocopying and last minute planning before our attendees arrived. A full house of 13 children (we ended up with a rogue form in the folder which no member of staff owned up to putting in there without writing the name on the list, or indeed informing them that it was already full, so we expected an extra and indeed he came). First we got everyone to make a name badge for themselves, we waved off Mums (we’d said they were welcome to stay but none did), I got an earbashing from a Mum about how one of her lad’s friends should have been allowed to come but he is 7 but not year 3 (or whatever year it is) and they’d been told only years 3 and 4, or 4 and 5 or something were allowed. I assured her that as I know now what any of these years mean it was strictly 7,8 or 9 year olds and nothing to do with school years. She carried on ranting for a bit before Russell stepped in and gently told her I was volunteering for the whole thing too but he would take her comments onboard. It is *free* so I did wonder on quite what grounds she felt justified in complaining on, but she did offer at the end to bring the biscuits next week so maybe we won her over after all ;).

Russell did an ice breaker of everyone introducing themselves and then I led the whole gaggle of children on a tour of the library. We came back to the junior library and I tasked them all with taking a few minutes to select a book off the shelf. It could be one they had read before if they liked but what I really wanted was for them to pretend they were choosing a book to take home today and to select on the same basis they usually did. We then came back to the circle and all held up the book we’d chosen and said why. We had fairy books chosen for the fairy on the front, animal books chosen for the animal on the front, Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl books chosen because we liked the author, books chosen for funny looking illustrations, books chosen because the ‘blurb’ on the back sounded good and a couple of non-fiction chosen because they were specific hobbies or interests (horses, planes, chess). We talked about book covers generally; fonts, illustrations, colours, author’s name, blurb on the back and so on and how even in the tiny kids library at Lancing there are more books than anyone could read in a lifetime so a book really has to be attractive from it’s front cover.

We then handed out clipboards, pens and paper and got everyone to design their own book cover to be as appealing as possible. Several children copied the book they’d chosen, some did other things they were interested in, some came up with complete off the top of their head ideas. The first person went wrong (we went straight to using pens, it wasn’t supposed to be about drawing in pencil first) and I said she could have another sheet of paper, screw up the one she’d done wrong and chuck it in the middle. This was met with delight and a feeling of slight craziness which was precisely what I want the group to be about and we netted a fairly big pile of balled up pieces of paper (which I got Russell to gather up as I have plans for them later in the sessions) and some really creative art work and ideas came foward.

As the children drew I offered to read aloud to them and ended up reading 3 different stories – I suspect they’d have happily sat there all afternoon doing that, they all seemed to really enjoy it :). Some of them had finished their pictures so they held them up and talked about them to the rest of the group, we said they could take them home and finish them and if they wanted to bring them back next time they could. We also had some quiz sheets and activities from various kids publishers websites to do too.

There is a Chatterbooks pack with bag, stickers, posters, pencil etc which we’ll be giving away components of over the course of the sessions and today I gave out Reading Diaries along with a questionnaire about their reading habits. We had squash and biscuits and that was the end of our hour. I had prepared a book cover jigsaw activity but we didn’t get round to that. I had some great comments from the kids including ‘this was so cool, not at all like school’ and ‘I can’t wait for next week!’ which was really nice and several of the mums hung back to say thanks at the end. Davies and Scarlett both said they really enjoyed it and thought it was really good – I hope they are a bit proud of me and also enjoy being part of my work at the same time :). One of the children asked me if any of the children were mine and when I said yes and asked her to guess which ones she correctly did :). All the kids seemed really friendly to each other, we had three sets of siblings (including D&S) and 3 sets of children who had come with a friend but the group meshed well together and at the end Scarlett was hanging out with another little girl chattering away while Davies helped Russell and I tidy up.

We had a very quick debrief and the kids and I left at 5pm. I think it’ll be worth getting there from about 230pm each week and being prepared to stay til 5pm although Russell did go to great lengths to assure me as I am not being paid I have no duty to help set up or tidy up.

So I reckon first session a success 🙂 I had a chorus of ‘yes!’ when I asked if the kids had enjoyed it and I’m really happy with my plans for next weeks’ session after which I’m hoping to get some ideas and feedback from the kids themselves. I’ll be seeing the Big Boss tomorrow night at Book Group (the one I go to) so it will be interesting to hear what feedback she’s already had by the time I see her tomorrow evening.

Home for tea for the kids and they watched the Simpsons Movie. We had a copy but it was scratched beyond watching and as it is the current obsession for Davies when we saw it at just £3 in Sainsburys I bought a replacement copy. I managed to light a fire including chopping up sticks and managing without fire lighters of which I was very proud as Ady often struggles even with fire lighters. I’m the firestarter…We read which we all enjoyed and then I declared myself readalouded out so Davies and Scarlett went to bed and I went for a bath.

Of course Davies and Scarlett didn’t go straight to sleep, Scarlett worked her way through about 5 Dick King-Smith audio books before needing me to sit with her for all of about five minutes before she drifted off to sleep. Davies came down to throw Doctor Who (David Tennant action figure) in my bath with me. David tends to be quite a regular visitor with Davies while I’m having my bath, I think he has a crush on me ;). And to present us with pictures of all the Simpsons.

I cooked tacos which were lovely and we watched Tower Block of Commons which has our MP in it so is perhaps more interesting than it otherwise would be.