Cambridge has a fabulous story-celebrating initiative called 52 Stories. Children bring their grown-ups from far and wide to Cherry Hinton Library every Saturday morning, to listen to wonderful books.
Mo Child and Annelies Saunders are among the founders of 52 Stories. And these intrepid ladies have been giving their time to organise the event for THREE WHOLE YEARS! They have a pool of volunteer readers, and somebody reads EVERY week. That’s a lot of stories!
Earlier this month I joined a group of volunteers and even more enthusiastic children, to celebrate 52 Stories’ third anniversary.
Reflecting the birthday theme, the books we read included ‘Angelina’s Birthday’, ‘Happy Birthday, Winnie’ and ‘Happy Birthday, Moon’. We also enjoyed the Paddington picture book, in tribute to Paddington’s creator Michael Bond who, sadly, died a few days earlier.
Our audience listened and joined in beautifully, and did some fantastic birthday-themed colouring-in. We all got a cupcake at the end, and went home looking forward to our next storytime session.
I’ll be reading at 52 Stories again on Saturday 29th July, 10.30-11.15am. I hope to see you there. @52stories
JANET BINGHAM - Children's Author 