Shear joy as over 120,000 children enjoy a sheepish tale!
National Simultaneous Storytime 2009 was a once again a great success with over 960 locations across Australia joining in on the simultaneous reading of Pete the Sheep at 11am on Wednesday 27th May.
National Simultaneous Storytime is run each year as part of the Library and Information Week activities and highlights the importance of reading and literacy and encourages a love of books in young Australians. With the help of its funding partner, Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)’s Cultural Fund, NSS this year was a even bigger than last year with ALIA selling over 40,000 Pete the Sheep stickers!
We have already had a number locations contacting us to say how much fun they had (also see note from Jan Richards below) and how the children loved Pete the Sheep as the Storytime book. The story, which about Pete is who is an amazing sheep that does things a little differently to his woolly cousins, definitely lends itself to some creative storytime ideas (especially with cotton wool!). Yass Regional Library had a visit from three real live sheep and three boardie-collie dogs to the thrill of the local children, Cleve Area School Library organised to have a live sheep shearing for students in conjunction to their storytime activities and Scarborough State School Library organised for their LOTE teacher to translate and read the story in Japanese (did you know that a sheep say mee mee in Japanese rather than baa baa?!).
The staff at ALIA National Office always look forward to National Simultaneous Storytime as a chance to do away with the computer and phone for a short while and satisfy their inner child with some colouring-in and animal mask making. A number of staff members got into the mood by donning their Akubra’s and Ugg boots (dressing up as shearers) especially for the storytime.
Myself and ALIA’s Events Manager, Kamara Schlegel, made the short trip across the NSW border to Braidwood Library where Jackie French, author of Pete the Sheep, read her book for National Simultaneous Storytime. Jackie had the 40 children in attendance captivated for the entire reading, some audience participation was needed and before we knew it we were baa-ing and woof-ing along with the rest of Australia! It was a great day and thanks to all the libraries, child-care centres, schools and work places for getting involved. Sue Hutley, Executive Director