Storytime

As writers we should have an abundance of imagination...and more importantly, use it. As children we have so much imagination, often told too much, and we use it constantly. We dream and play and anything is possible. However we grow and are told not to be dreamers, to be realistic, to stop 'playing' and we use our imagination less and less. It's school holidays so it is program after program for us at the library. So far we've had a maker space which consists of putting out a table load of craft items and allowing the children to make what they could/ would. We had tubes of all sizes, aluminium foil, icy pole sticks, long sticks, feathers, patty pan papers, twine, pom poms, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, coloured paper, googly eyes and so much more. The children made puppets and rockets, rabbits and collage pictures, machine guns and kites, kaleidoscopes and binoculars, dolls and mobiles. It was so much fun. They can look at something and see so much more in...

At a recent poetry event, nostalgia seemed the theme for the day. A lot of poems focused on remembering people, whether grandparents or parents...best friends from childhood days. But it seemed that even more poems were about childhood. Not necessarily major childhood events, but everyday happenings that to the majority of the audience, took us back to our own childhood. For some of us, childhood was quite a few years ago...but in reality how much has changed? Unfortunately a lot.  Today's child appears to be twinned with technology. How far can a tween go without their phone/ playstation/ Ipad? How many toddlers know exactly how to work an Iphone? They can't speak in coherent sentences, but can show you the photo of the puppy they played with on holiday. And of course there is that whole revolution about getting children moving, getting them into that forgotten sphere of play...outside. How many children of today have discovered a ring of fairy toadstools? Sat down...