As I have said before, one of my favourite times in our library is before school when the library fills with students as they come in for BRB time to browse, read and borrow books. It’s also a time when parents and siblings visit the library and over the years little brothers and sisters have always been welcome to read and borrow books too. It is never too early to become part of a reading community!
Our youngest borrower was only a few months old when she started borrowing books from our library. Her mum would regularly bring her to the library so her big sister in Year 3 could choose a picture book to borrow and read to her at home. This was the first book she borrowed!
That baby is a now very independent and bubbly 3 year-old who is borrowing her own books! She comes along every Thursday and pops her books in the Returns chute and happily heads to the picture book section to choose her three books (no more, no less!). She then confidently scans her books and tucks them into her library bag. We often have a little chat about what she has been up to before she chooses a book for her mum to read to her and happily dances out the door to her weekly swimming lesson! It is delightful that visiting our library is a special part of her Thursday.
This young man goes to preschool and regularly comes in before school to borrow just like his big sister in Year One. He loves to borrow both non fiction and picture books and chooses his books with great care. He happily stands in the borrowing line with our students and confidently turns his books to the barcode at the back to scan them before putting them safely into his library bag. He often brings a toy car to show me and we have a little chat about it before he reads a book with his mum or big sister and heads off to preschool. It won’t be long before he will be borrowing books wearing his school uniform!
We also have little visitors who happily enjoy sharing stories together in our Story Chair after school.
It is wonderful to watch these little brothers and sisters become part of our school reading community with the ‘big kids’ and seeing themselves as readers too!
One of my joys at the beginning of each year is when these children come to their first Prep library class and watching them choose and scan their book and put it in their library bag with such confidence…their look of pride is truly priceless!
Do you remember coming into our library before school to read or borrow with your big brothers or sisters?
