Building a Library - Joan Lennon

About a year ago, I posted about books From Back When. I have a library of favourite books that were read to me when I was little, and that I read to my boys when they were little, and now we're building a library for my grandson who is little. (He's 3 now.) We've found copies of some of the (very) old favourites. And every week, on Thursday morning, he and I go to the local public library and trawl through the overly-packed boxes in the picture book section. And we are finding treasure! Here are just a few of the books that we found and are gradually buying for Arran to keep for when he has children of his own.

(These are of course just what's home from the public library at the moment and therefore available to be photographed. There have been many more!)

In no special order:

The Queen's Lift-off written and illustrated by Steve Antony, for the fabulously detailed pictures

I am Bat written and illustrated by Morag Hood, simply for Bat - 'I am ferocious like a lion. (But smaller and with wings.)'

And one more Morag Hood - Teapot Trouble - because I am in love with Tiny Horse and his irrepressible enthusiasm

On the Night of the Shooting Star written by Amy Hest and illustrated by Jenni Desmond, if for no other reason than it includes the sentence 'The cocoa is hot, the biscuits sublime.'

Who knows what we may discover next Thursday! Meantime, any suggestions for Arran's library gratefully received.

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

AMONG THE ANKLE BITERS by Penny Dolan. Or How I Learned about Library Storytimes.

Earlier this year, I started helping out with Storytimes at my local library.  As an ex-primary teacher and then a visiting author, I’m used to talking to children in semi-public places.  

However, when facing the small people known among the Visiting Trade
as the ANKLE BITERS and KNEE HUGGERS brigade, 
the rules are slightly different. . .

There they sit there, around the library carpet: an audience composed of several wide-eyed, wobbling toddlers, a quantity of  independent-minded two-year olds and, with luck, some enthusiastically vocal three year olds, along with their range of "extras": their new-born baby siblings and all the assorted mums, dads, grandparents, carers, child-minders and more who come along.

This isn’t a quiet-and-cosy, sit-in-the-corner-reading kind of session. Storytimes involve lots of cheerful singing and actions, a bit of storytelling - with or without books – along with relevant animal toys, puppets and suchlike, plus what might be called a large amount of expressive mime (or, as some might say, showing-off) from the leader.

The long Storytime half-hour (or so) also includes an obligatory rhythmic interlude, involving a large boxful of small percussion instruments that can be merrily jangled, bashed and squabbled over. There may, occasionally, be a bubbling bubble-machine or a giving-out of stickers & colouring sheets and other delights. 

Moreover, all of this has to take place at a pace that is brisk, calm and confident enough to take the little ones – and the big ones - along with you, even while you feel like a low-budget children’s tv presenter with a big, wide smile. “Storytime!"

Now, despite all my earlier experience, I have had to learn new skills and re-learn others so here, for your own education and interest, are some of my recent realisations:

One: Knowing what you now don’t know. 

You may believe your brain worn away by years of children’s songs. You may imagine that those words are permanently inscribed on the inside of your skull. This is not true. Yes, you can join in with a nursery sing-song but leading a song alone is a very different matter. All but the first lines may well have faded if you don't have very young children around.

You are, in addition, likely to muddle one tune with another, or forget quite how that song resolves its ending, e.g. what did happen after the last little duck went swimming away, over the hills and far away etc. How exactly did they get back and through whom? 

Variants exist, but which one is needed? And which brain-worm should you ignore? I have had to do quite a lot of unseen relearning and rehearsing when alone, and I always keeping a crib-card list of all the maybe-not-so familiar songs to hand when I'm "live”.

Two: Keeping the focus when “Aaaagh!” happens. . . 

You may also find that knowing which precise number of little spotted frogs one is singing about fades somewhat when you spot sturdy Billy about to crash into fragile little Rose just in front of your eyes and action is needed.  When I lose my place, I ask the audience, smiling widely, and/or to begin again at a number chosen with almost-papal confidence.

.

Three:  So, today I’ll be reading from . .  . ? 

Discovering books that are good for reading aloud – repeat, aloud - for these youngest children is not as easy as you’d imagine. Most picture books are made for close interaction, with lots of pointing at the page, responding to a single child’s reactions, and the books generally take place (and are plotted) within a very close relationship too. 

Finding a book you’re happy with using for a Storytime may take up more time than you think, despite the number of picture books available. Moreover – and sorry, dear writer - the book may need to be transformed into told, acted-out story to make sense. Luckily, this task can be seen as useful story-writing research and one quickly learns to spot weak or boring plot-points.

Four:  Look at this interesting thing - or “what I see is mine!”

The good thing about using objects and props is they can both help one remember a particular story or song and give the audience something on which to focus their attention. The less good thing is that, unlike Reception classes, these youngest children are very tactile. Some will grab at anything on offer so I now watch for any hands coming. If the item will come to no harm, I let the adult know I’ll collect it back in afterwards. If not, I place the prop back somewhere out of reach.

Early on, I learned to consider prop materials too. I brought in four bright wooden dice to demonstrated the colours in a song. I began and suddenly saw, as two small speedy paws reached out, my blocks about to become wonderfully throw-able missiles Phew! Thank goodness I saw that before it happened! Ever since, I point out the colours on t-shirts or items around the library and choose song colours accordingly – and we now sing about spots and stripes as well as primary colours for that particular song.

Five: “We like knowing what we know”.   

Or, in other words, gender equality hasn’t reached the canon of nursery songs yet, although I do fight back during Wheels on the Bus when I can. "The mummies on the bus go "Chatter chatter chatter." Pah! However, the familiar, cultural versions are what these little children know they know, so one has to go gently with any innovations.

 
Besides, there’s a whole history within those nursery lines.
Who, from among these tiny children, will actually have jumped up and down in the hay on the back of a tractor? 
Who will have wound up a bobbin? 
Who will have seen ordinary people riding horses as a means of everyday transport: gallop, gallop, gallop? 
Or big ships sailing on Alley-Ohs anywhere? 
Or come across a farm still as mixed as Old Macdonald’s, ee-i-oh? 
To my mind, these songs create an agreeable sort of time-warp, helping all children to know more about past cultures.  
Please note: I’m very happy to bring in other songs when I have found them and know some, but for now . . .

Six: A different audience or not?  

The grown-ups in the audiences at Storytimes are mostly like the teachers and library staff that authors meet on school visits. While most join in enthusiastically and in a kindly, helpful way, some will be ready to correct your amusing variation on a familiar rhyme, or choose better stories, or even chat or scan their phone-screens. 

Just focus on the session, I tell myself. Don’t worry if the children wander around and about too much either, as long as they are safe – and that the Storytime helper is over there blocking that suddenly-opened library door. Besides, once the Storytime itself is over, these free sessions offer a relaxed time and space for any new mums or carers and their children to start making new friends, and that surely is a good thing at what can be a lonely time.

Seven: Ready or not . . ? 

I put off volunteering for these Storytime sessions for quite a while as I wasn’t sure if the preparation, learning and revision would be worth the loss of writing time.

I’d like to report that, in general, leading these Library Storytimes certainly is worth it because:

 - I’m keeping my public “persona” and performance voice alive at a time when there are fewer school visits around to keep this bit of me in good condition.

- I’m remembering past skills and material as well as widening my repertoire for working with Nursery and Early Years children.

- I’m enjoying assessing a range of picture books for possible read-aloud qualities. (See point three, above.)

- I’m pottering about among my pens, pencils and art materials once again and that makes me very happy.

- I’m moving about much more instead of being stuck at my desk. Everything involved with the sessions including carting books and props about and shifting light book-boxes makes, with care, a very good physical workout.

- I’m meeting and working with all the other Storytime helpers and library staff, and so avoiding any writing recluse syndrome.

- And, finally, I am now finding Storytimes much easier and more enjoyable, even when things don’t go perfectly to plan.

In fact, I was told by the librarians that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t perfect at Storytime, because the sessions are intended to get new parents sharing the books, rhymes and stories with their children themselves. Perhaps my less-than-musical singing could even inspire those listening grown-ups to do better? 

All I need to do is keep the Storytime rolling along. 

 Are you ready? All together now?

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes  . . .”

Penny Dolan

Another Library Under Threat

I don’t suppose I’m different from anyone else, but I love my hometown, Hay-on-Wye. It’s referred to as the Book Town because we have so many bookshops. They are all second-hand bookshops, but they are great. You’d be hard pressed not to find a book on your chosen subject.

We also have a ruined castle dating back to the 13^th century, a clock tower that tolls the time quarter-hourly, art and craft galleries, stylish clothes shops, butter and cheese markets, antiques and a world-renowned literary festival.

If you’ve ever been to Hay Festival you’ll know how fantastic it is. For ten days each year our population is multiplied fifty times over and we rub shoulders with book-lovers and authors alike. The festival has its own bookshop stacked with brand new books and people sit all over the site reading. I love the smell of a new book and the crack of the spine when I open it for the first time.

You would expect a book town with so many bookshops and a literary festival to have a library, and we do. It is run by the noisiest librarian in the west! Jayne is amazing. She finds books for us, reads to our children and helps with any query, book-related or not. She has computer classes at the library, a ton of information about the town and meet-the-author events. She knows about books, old and new, and generally brightens the day of anyone who meets her. We borrow books, pretty much as many as we want and, for three weeks at a time, they are ours to hold and to value and, above all, to read.

Sadly, the Book Town’s library, like so many others, is under threat. Powys County Council is seeking to reduce the library’s costs by half, I am not sure if that is before or after the Festival’s yearly contribution of £11,000. Now, you might say we have to accept cuts and I agree, but not to a library that is only open sixteen hours a week.

We will learn our fate tomorrow, but with a budget of £163m and a reputation for being inefficient, I would have thought there might be many other ways to save £18,000 a year rather than knocking the heart out of the Book Town.

Yay for PLR!!! - John Dougherty

In all probability, either you'll know pretty well exactly what PLR stands for, or you won't have a clue. If you're a writer - even an as-yet unpublished one - I hope you'll be in the first camp, but if you're not, let me take a moment to explain what is it and why it makes me go "Yay!"

PLR stands for Public Lending Right. It's basically the right of authors to be rewarded when their books are publicly lent. In other words, if people are borrowing your books from libraries, you ought to get paid.

Before my first book came out, I had no idea this existed. It was only when my unusually on-the-ball first editor said, "You must look into PLR - No, you must... No, you MUST!!!" that I did. To be honest, even when I looked into it, it didn't seem worth doing. Five pence (as it was then; now it's more like seven) per loan... But actually, it's been a very handy little stream of income. I've never got anywhere near the maximum you can get - £6,000, I believe - but every time the PLR statement has arrived, it's been most welcome.

I'm choosing today's post to talk about this for one very good reason. If you've had a book (or audiobook) out in the last year, tomorrow is the closing date for registration. That is, you can register your book the day after tomorrow if you like, but you'll have missed out on up to a year's payment. So let me repeat:

Tomorrow is the closing day for this year's PLR registration!

The website is here: https://www.plr.uk.com/index.htm. If you're a published writer or illustrator and you haven't signed up for it - or you've got a new book you haven't registered - then go! Do it now!

And if you aren't a published author, I hope you'll still join me in thanking the team who administer PLR. They make a big difference to the lives of authors in the UK.

Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Great Big Story Nickers, illustrated by David Tazzyman and published by OUP, is the latest in John's Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face series.

His other new books in 2016 will include the sixth Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face title, his first poetry collection - Dinosaurs & Dinner-Ladies, illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones and published by Otter-Barry Books  - and several readers for schools.

First Draft, the author band featuring John, Jo Cotterill and Paul and Helen Stickland, will next be performing at the Just So Festival in August.

The Books that Made Me - or Thanks for the Library

by

Lynne Benton

A recent series on television called “The TV that Made Me” gave a fascinating glimpse into the TV that various “celebrities” watched during their childhood which made them into the people they are now.  When I was a child we didn’t have a television (my parents didn’t get one till after I’d left home, when my father overruled my mother’s objections so he could watch the 1966 World Cup!)  But I never felt deprived, because from a very early age I discovered that I could whisk myself away into another world as soon as I opened the covers of a BOOK. 

Although I had some books of my own, they were never enough for a keen reader like me.  So when I was allowed to join the library, aged 6 or so, I couldn’t believe my luck – here were thousands of books for me to choose from, and all for free!  It felt like paradise.  Over the years I borrowed a great variety of books, including many by Enid Blyton, who in those days was the undisputed queen of children’s literature (children were always to be found queuing up beside the B section of the children’s library, waiting for returned Blytons!)  My teachers in the primary school used to read us some of her stories, too, so they all became favourites.  I particularly loved her books of magic, such as "The Magic Faraway Tree" and "The Wishing Chair", and as I grew a little older I enjoyed her books of adventure and mystery, such as The Five Find-Outers, and "The Castle/Ship/Island of Adventure."  Later, of course, her reputation became tarnished, but back then she was just someone who wrote very exciting stories.  

Other favourites were inspired, not by television of course, but by radio.  I was an avid listener to Children’s Hour (one hour a day at teatime) which introduced me to Alison Uttley’s “Little Grey Rabbit” and Kenneth Graham’s “The Wind in the Willows” (both read by the incomparable voice of David Davies).  Children’s Hour also serialised some wonderful books for children, including “Jennings at School” by Antony Buckeridge,

“White Boots” by Noel Streatfeild

and “The Swish of the Curtain” by Pamela Brown.


These all fed my imagination, so that as soon as I’d heard them on Children's Hour I looked for them in the library and read them for myself, and was delighted to discover that they were all parts of series, so I was able to read more and more by the same authors. 

I also discovered L M Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables”, the whole series of which I borrowed over time from the library.

In the first year at Grammar School our form mistress introduced us to Malcolm Saville’s “Lone Pine” series, many of which I was again able to borrow from the library.  A friend and I were even inspired to form our very own Lone Pine Club. Sadly, most of these are out of print now, but they were great stories of mystery and adventure, set in real places you could actually visit.

I also loved the “William” books by Richmal Crompton

and anything by E. Nesbit, as well as “What Katy Did” and its sequels. And although I had my own copies of the Katy books and the Little Women books (birthday presents from an aunt) the others I borrowed from the library.



So it seems to me that most of the books that "made" me were thanks in no small part to the local library.  Magic, families, adventure, mysteries - they were all there for me to read and read and read.  Although I was originally inspired by Children's Hour or by interested adults (usually teachers), it was thanks to the library that I was able to read more of each series that I latched on to, until I felt as if I knew all the characters through and through.   And this is what I want to do in my own books - create characters that children will feel they really know.

No doubt everyone has their own list of books that made them the people they are now.  Maybe some of today's children will one day remember our books in the same way.  As long as libraries still exist for them to find all the books they want to read...

Sliding Doors - T. M. Alexander

What am I going to write? I thought. My first blog in the company of authors. I flicked through recent posts and there was Miriam Halahmy, talking about how she has always written. Bingo!

I was a sporty kid, most often found either hitting a tennis ball against the back of the house or walking on my hands. I liked to be outside not inside, and I did everything fast. Running was my favourite occupation,
writing my least, because my hand couldn’t keep up with my head. As soon as I could, I dropped all subjects requiring sentences, for those that relied on digits and symbols.
Ten years flew by employed in big companies, followed by another ten working as a freelancer so that I could be around for my three children. Writing was for shopping lists, birthday cards and cheques.

Then came Life-changing Wednesday.

I had rashly left my contracting job, bored with endless meetings of twenty or more suits. The children were all at school and, not used to being home alone, the days were long. On my way back home from the supermarket (oh the domesticity of it), I stopped to look in the bookshop window. There was a flyer for a creative writing course starting that day at Clifton Library, 10.30. I dumped the bags and cycled over.

It was hideous. They all knew one another having been meeting every Wednesday for years. Keen to hear each other’s news after the long summer break, they took turns around the room talking of their writing projects – books, poems, articles, plays. With every declaration of prowess my armpits grew sweatier. Finally, all eyes were on me.

‘I haven’t written anything since I was at school,’ I said, red-faced. ‘But I’ve got lots of ideas.’

Joan, OBE, elbowed me in the ribs.

‘Better write them down, then, dear.’

Ninety minutes later I hopped back on my bike, homework assignment in my pannier. I wore down several pencils that week, working on my first memory of being alone. Arriving at the next class the teacher asked if I felt brave enough to read my piece aloud.

‘You try and stop me,’ I said.

Wednesday mornings became the highlight of my week.

Months later our assignment was to write the opening paragraph of a short story, setting the scene and casting the narrative hook. The example I jotted down in my black notebook from 2005 was, ‘With hindsight, he realised he had never meant to destroy London.’ And underneath, ‘A short story is a really good day out, rather than a fortnight away.’

Armed with the rules, off I went. I wrote the beginning, then the middle and then the end. After reading my first few lines in class, the teacher exercised her honed sixth sense.

‘Is there any more?’

I read the 2,000 word story. She said I should send it off somewhere.

Receiving first prize at the London Review Bookshop

The email arrived when I was playing tennis in Ilfracombe with my sister. My husband read it to me over the phone.

The winner of the Momaya Short Story Competition is . . .

‘Muchlove later’, to steal from Roger McGough’s The Icingbus, I asked Joan what splendid deed led to her being awarded an OBE.

‘Getting to Over Bloody Eighty,’ she said, slapping my thigh.

           

The thing is, if the flyer had advertised a pottery class starting Wednesday, 10.30, Clifton Library, I’d have gone there.

T. M. Alexander

www.tmalexander.com

As Libraries Close - Lynne Garner

This is perhaps going to be the shortest blog I've ever written. But I wanted to share this with you.

Recently I visited friends who live in a small close-knit village. Last year one of my friends retired and has joined a number of local clubs. One of these clubs is the book club. They meet once a month, choose a book, everyone reads it and over tea and cake they discuss it.

Now last year BT decided the public phone, situated in the middle of the village was no longer viable so removed it. However they left the box, empty and uncared for. So the local book club came up with a wonderful idea. They have filled it with books looking for new homes. They have invited the entire  village to take part and enjoy using the new local 'library.'

Basically if you take a book you replace with a book you enjoyed reading and want to share. So far the system is working well and as you can see this small library is quite well stocked.
 

Well stocked for its size!

I just love this idea. I'm hoping people think so to and perhaps create their own small libraries and soon they'll be popping up all over the place.