I’ve always been mad on books, and when I was young I was a regular visitor to the library. When I got older and moved away from home, I can honestly say I hadn’t thought to step into a library again in an age of cinema, TV streaming and Kindle downloads. However, when my son was born 3 years ago, within a few months of his birth I was back in the library. This time it was attending rhyme times and story times as a way of getting out of the house and meeting other new parents.
Before long I realised that these events are only made possible by the volunteers who give up their time to do them. Knowing I had the time to offer and how important libraries are from an early age I started to volunteer at Ely library with the rhyme time and then with the story time. This helped to build my confidence as a storyteller and singer, and after a year or so I realised it was crazy helping in Ely when I had an amazing library service in my own village which also needed support.
At the same time I knew my friend Lianne was also looking to start up a craft session in the village to make use of her brilliant creative skills. Therefore we suggested joining forces and working together to set something up with Littleport library. Six months on and we are loving it!
Each week we have different themes which have included trains, bears, space and penguins! The stories and singing part are totally free and we just ask for a 50p donation to cover the costs if you want to join the craft.
Recently we have even been branching out from our usual format and have had visits from local author Nigel Tetley and the Ely Reusable Nappy Library. Over the summer we also had 5 special events aimed to include the older children including Dr Seuss, Thomas the Tank Engine and The Tiger Who Came To Tea. It’s been so much fun planning and delivering all these fantastic activities.
Littleport Library is such an amazing facility to have on our doorstep and offers so many services that you might not be aware of for children and adults. Please feel free to come and say hello every Wednesday at 1.30pm. We don’t care if your child doesn’t sit still for the stories or if they just want to eat the craft glue! We’ve seen it all and would just love to meet you.