Inspired Storytimes

Halloween Inspired Storytimes inspiring me!

All my library visits are fantastic but last week's Halloween Inspired Storytimes seemed particularly epic! I visited four libraries, taught 139 children (maybe more), and got 71 new subscribers! The best part was seeing the amazing response from the kids to my music audiobook called 'Weird & Wonderful'!

Music Audio Stories - Storytime with Anna-Christina at Swiss Cottage Library

Although this story is not strictly a Halloween story, it is in keeping with the theme of Halloween and features "weird" bugs such as a slug, a snail, a centipede, and a spider. Children love to draw spiders in their webs and I love the underlining message of this story that it's ok to be weird and wonderful!

I began my Storytimes in North London at Swiss Cottage Library! I had a wonderful group of around 36 children who loved the story and had fun creating their drawings. There were lots of spiders in webs! I was also very happy to see some children in fancy dress and there were a few princesses and Batman! I was dressed as a Bumblebee!

My posters were up at the library and my Storytime was announced several times on the tannoy. I love this!

Music Audio Stories - Storytime with Anna-Christina at the Barbican Centre

My second visit was at the Barbican Centre. This is one of the largest places I regularly visit and I love the community spirit at the library. I arrived early and caught the last part of Sarah, the librarian's, pop-up book storytelling session with a nursery group. It was brilliant! I love pop-up books!

I had a lovely group of children who were all excellent at the activities we did and sat still listening to the story extremely well! 'Weird & Wonderful' is a great audiobook for teaching younger children about the bugs in the story. It is slower than some of my other audiobooks and so it is perfect for younger groups of children.

Sarah conducted an evaluation form at the end of my Storytime and I was blown away by some of the feedback I saw from the parents! Lots of great comments and 10 Star ratings too! ✨

There were 52 people in Chiswick Library for my third Storytime! Almost full capacity for the Children's Library! It was absolutely brilliant! I heard that tickets had sold out on Eventbrite the week before and so I brought extra supplies with me, and it's a good job that I had!

Chiswick Library has been decorated so beautifully by the librarians and children and I always find myself admiring the artwork placed all around the children's library. Here are some of my favourite things on their walls...

Chiswick Library artwork.

My last Storytime was in South London at Wimbledon Library. I was pleasantly surprised when I turned up at the library to find it had been completely transformed! The London Borough of Merton is transforming its library spaces and the Wimbledon Children's Library has undergone a magical transformation into a tropical forest storyland which includes a real grass carpet to add to its sensational themed artwork on the walls. I am not sure when this transformation accrued but it didn't look like this when I last visited in May!

Wimbledon Children's Library.

I had 57 children take part in my Storytime! This is the largest group of children I have ever taught at any one time and it was AMAZING! Wimbledon Library was buzzing and the children loved my audiobook and activities. I had to take my shoes off so I could carefully step around the children on the floor whilst they created their drawings!

It was a wonderful way to end, what has been my most successful Library Storytimes yet! ✨

Well done to all of the children who took part and BIG thank you to all the libraries and librarians for magical Storytelling week!

See you all again next year!

Anna-Christina