11 Comments

The tree book looks amazing!

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I’m very impressed by the selection at your library! Do you mind sharing in which area of London you live? (We are in the borough of Richmond).

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Absolutely, but I’ll email you privately.

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I like that your pointed out how choosing which books to return and keep was a way for them to exercise decision making that was difficult but not high risk. Never would have though of that!

When you take your kids to the library, what does choosing these books look like? Do they browse and pick out books at random and decide to keep them based on how the cover looks? Do you ask them what topics they are interested in and direct them to that section? Or do you look up titles ahead of time and place a hold online? My son is only 18 months but I do want to familiarize him with the library as he ages and curious to know what has worked well for your family.

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We do all of those things! First of all we spend a long time at the library - sometimes several hours. So the children have loads of time to read books and decide if they want to borrow them. They are often drawn to books that they can read in 5 minutes and then don’t have any desire to read again, so I try to help them see that those books aren’t really worth borrowing. Yesterday I had managed for the first time ever to request books in advance which worked well, and I also browse the shelves to pick out books the children might like (or that are useful for our current learning). Although I try to guide them to books that are good quality and that they will actually want to spend time with, I think it’s really important that they have plenty of control over what they borrow - I don’t want library trips to become a chore that is simply imposed on them. Hence the Star Wars Lego book! I know some families have rules like X number of stories, X non-fiction, X picture books, and X parent’s choice, but that kind of structure wouldn’t have worked for us. We like a bit of a free for all…!

As your son is only 18 months I think it’s worth saying that some parents, myself included, don’t find library trips with very young children particularly rewarding or beneficial. There was definitely a time when I went to the library by myself. There’s so much choice it can be overwhelming, and frankly when your child is tiny you need to make things as easy as possible. So please don’t imagine that we’ve been doing our multi-hour library trips from birth!

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Thanks for the inside scoop! I’m thinking we will request books ahead too at this point. He has particular interest right now and trying to sort through all the choices in person would be time consuming. We went to the library last week for story time and that was his first exposure. We browsed briefly afterwards to see what the children’s section was like. I can see him enjoying it more when he’s older. At this point he is at the exploration age so would rather walk around and touch everything. I’m thinking a movement and music class will be more up our alley next time, he seems to prefer story time at home in my lap more than instead.

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I was so distressed by the story of Frankenstein as a young child (which I don’t ever remember reading so I wonder maybe I watched the film which came out when I was six? Or if my dad told me what happened?) - I just found it unbearably sad and I couldn’t stand to see the film posters! Xx

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Oh no! I hope the Usborne version is a bit more tame… Definitely feel I should have screened this one!

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I'm sure it is!! And I was a VERY sensitive child. Just two examples: 1) was upset for literal years because I once saw a pigeon with one eye which looked sad and would ask my parents to avoid walking down that street, 2) once got my dad to CARVE A SMILE into my plastic gorilla toy because it looked sad (and a carved smile is def less creepy...?!)

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Oh my goodness! That is partly very funny but I feel mean laughing and I bet it wasn’t funny at the time. What big feelings. By comparison I think I was probably an emotional stone. My children certainly have their fair share of big feelings but in future I shall consider that I’ve never had to carve a smile on a plastic gorilla, which definitely puts things in perspective!

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I was also incredibly physically timid - my parents like to remind me of the time I told them to “regarde mes exploits!!” (I was in France at the time) then jumped off my grandparents back step. A truly daring leap of around 20cm. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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