Ability, Motive, Opportunity and Goblins, by Claire Fayers

 Hi all,

I'm going to be taking a bit of a break from the blog after Christmas so this will be my last post for a little while. I do intend to start up again once I've got some new ideas together.

Recently, I've been talking to libraries again, taking part in an online librarians conference and then visiting libraries to run school sessions.

I love visiting schools, but I am really enjoying having classes come into the libraries. The scheme is paid for by the Welsh Books Council who always pay promptly. As the classes come in, the sessions generally start a little later in the morning so there's no leaving home at the crack of dawn. And it's great fun. Maybe not quite so much fun for anyone else in the library at the time (if you were trying to work this morning when a rowdy group was creating goblins, I apologise!)

Part of my talk at the library conference centred around getting children to read, which got me thinking about why we want kids to read, and what's stopping them. In the grand tradition of murder mysteries, I think it comes down to ability, motive and opportunity. If kids struggle to decode every sentence, the whole thing becomes a hard slog, meaning they have little motive to read. And if they don't have access to books, they can't read.

Schools do a lot to address ability. Libraries are primarily about opportunity - making books available. We, as authors, can have a big impact on motive, engaging with young readers, making reading fun.

Bringing all three together feels very special. Children who've never been to a public library get to see the place for the first time whilst also meeting an author who can talk enthusiastically about the library, read, play games and generally have fun. 

My sessions are based on Welsh goblins, and the highlight is when I pass a marker pen around and the children take turns at designing a goblin to live in the library. I give them all a design-your-own-goblin postcard to take away and the class goblin stays in the library to encourage them to come back and see it some other time.

The fact that the goblins are very badly drawn just adds to the fun.

Have a great Christmas all!