Storytelling course

Do you want to share stories with your child but are not sure how to start?

You don’t have to be great at reading to tell a brilliant story.

Rochdale Libraries and Touchstones Rochdale are offering a free Storytelling Course for Parents and Carers. Starting on Monday 6 July and ending with a celebration party for all the family on Saturday 26 September the six sessions will explore Storytelling in its many forms.

For further details and to book your free place tel: 01706 924941 or email: ray.stearn@rochdale.gov.uk

Apologies: due to circumstances beyond our control we have had to postpone this programme. We hope to be able to deliver it later this year.

Reading group news

At the May meeting of Middleton Reading Group we discussed our favourite authors’ debut novels.

Our next meeting is on Monday 22nd June from 6 – 7 p.m. at Middleton Library and we will be discussing books by Elizabeth Gaskell.

New members are always welcome to join us.

Contact Community Librarian, Maria, on 0161 643 5228 for more information.

A winner!

We have our first book crawl gold certificate winner!

Grace Manock, age three uses both Alkrington and Middleton libraries nearly every day and has made 40 visits since we introduced the scheme in July. 2008

Out of this world

We had a Doctor Who-themed party on Saturday 6 September 2008 to celebrate the re-opening of Smallbridge Library after extensive rebuidling work.

Guests of honour were some Daleks (we have to say that or they would exterminate us!). We also had a display of props and costumes from Doctor Who and our own little Tardis in the corner of the library.

Many thanks to everybody who turned up and made this such a great day.

Doctor Who books in our libraries

More photos from Smallbridge Library.

Were you ready for the Summer Reading Challenge?

This year's Summer Reading Challenge for children — "Team Read" — ran from July to September 2008. Hundreds of children joined in, reading lots of books and collecting their bronze, silver and gold medals along the way.

• Everybody who completed the Summer Reading Challenge will get a certificate.



• Don't worry if you didn't complete the Challenge, the important thing is that you had fun and enjoyed some great stories!

We launched this year's Summer Reading Challenge with two library sessions for schools with special guest performers:

• Tom Palmer at the Wheatsheaf Library on Tuesday 17 June; and



• Craig Bradley at Junction Community Library on Wednesday 18 June.

All primary schools in the Borough were invited to send four Year 5 children to the events as "ambassadors." They enjoyed quizzes or a performance poetry session and were each given a Team Read pack to show to the rest of the school.

Penalty shoot-out at the Wheatsheaf Library

After his talk about books and reading, Tom Palmer pitted schools against each other in an exciting 'Penalty Shoot-Out Quiz.' The reward for each correct answer was the opportunity to take a penalty kick against Ray 'The Cat' Stearn.

Poetry workout at Junction Library

Craig Bradley's physical brand of performance poetry - with the emphasis on performance - got the children involved in wordplay galore (can you see what is special about the word SWIMS ?) and quite a few leeks.

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Boys Into Books

We also took the opportunity to introduce teachers to "Boys Into Books," a collection of books aimed at boys in the 5—11 age group, available for loan to primary school classes.

• Boys Into Books website