At work I put my name down to do 'Story time' with visiting children.
"Would you like a name?" my boss asked, preparing the flyer to advertise the event.
"Er, maybe...I don't know." I felt as though someone had asked me if I wanted to name my sneakers. Well, I could, but was it necessary? Still, previous story-tellers had used costumes, props and names, so who was I to be Miss Boring?
The next morning when I awoke, a name had popped into my head. Rose Tall. An acronym of Reader Of Stories Every Tuesday At 11. I was suitably impressed, yet disturbed by this little creation, as was my boss in turn. Sure it was clever, but what kind of nutter brewed that in her head in the night?
Yet a name wasn't enough. I decided costuming for specific stories was not my thing, so thinking of traditional Story-tellers I wondered if I might get a cloak. My local Tree of Life had no cloaks left with Summer on it's way, but I did manage to get a vastly discounted voluminous crushed velvet jackety shirt thing. On this I sewed buttons. Each button was a prompt for a traditional fairy-tale. A diamante glass one was Cinderella. A giant brown one Jack and the Beanstalk etc. Though I would read from books, I thought it might be an icebreaker talking point. Okay, I was set.
The first appointed time rolled round. I set up my seat in the corner of the kids section, I practised a rhyme about my name to help people remember (gosh yes, it's worth worrying about) and waited for the little folk to arrive and promptly be dazzled by my witty one-liners and thoughtful costuming.
One family of two children turned up. I looked at my seat in the corner and decided it would be ridiculous so we sat together on the long seat. Basically I read to the one little girl. Her brother, being about 16 months, simply pulled books off all the shelves around us. The little girl, lets call her Cindy, was delighted with the first story and I swelled with pride;hey it was only one kid, but she was loving it!
I think her mum was getting into the story too. However story number two was obviously boring as all buggery and I had to really wing it by shortening it as I went and making it rather more exciting to keep her attention, Frankly we were all distracted now by little brother emptying the shelves, and I only just made it to the finish line, where we all sighed in relief and praised the wonders of book one.
The following week, when no-one showed at all, my boss, genius that she is, went out on the street and spruiked storytime until one Mum, possibly out of fear, came in. She had two girls. Lets call them Pixie and Lily. Once again we sat on the bench as I felt silly sitting in a corner and plonking them on a rug. And this was where I made my mistake. Pixie liked climbing equipment and apparently I qualified. She was a very friendly tactile little girl who, beside trying to climb all over me as I struggled to read, kept trying to look at my necklace, bracelet, the buttons on the chair. Lily was a little needy of concentration so her Mum would ask regularly in a nice voice, "Are you listening sweetie." Eventually the little girl, aged about 4 whipped around with a firece face and held a fist to her mothers nose. Boy, did I finish storytime quickly. "We'll come back another time." promised the Mum when leaving.
"Heh, heh." was all I managed.
And yet, I am learning a load, some of which is young children only laugh at slapstick, not wit and, if you work with little kids, be prepared for anything!
