Share-a-Story Month

It’s Share-a-Story Month! This event is organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG), which was set up to encourage children’s interest in books and reading. Every May they promote the idea of reading aloud to your children, or asking them to read aloud to you. In other words, it’s all about sharing stories! (And no reason to restrict this to the children – Why not share some stories with the grown-ups in your life too?) You can find out more about the month on the FCBG website.

We’ve got lots of stories to share at Swansea Met libraries, of course! You’ll find tons of lovely picture books and junior fiction books in Welsh and English in the Teaching Practice section on the first floor of Townhill Library. The junior fiction section covers teenage and young adult fiction too, but there are lots more novels downstairs if you’re looking for something for an older audience!

If you’re stuck for inspiration and don’t know which books are the best to read aloud, you could try some of the titles from Mal Peet’slist in the Guardian. Mal Peet won the CILIP Carnegie Medal for his novel Tamar, which you can borrow from Townhill Library. His list of 10 books to read aloud is a very personal choice based on stories enjoyed by him and his children. For a wider range of titles, you might like to try Great Books to Read Aloud which explains why reading to children can be so beneficial and suggests 70 titles which work well when read out loud. The books are sorted in different age ranges from babies to 11-year-olds and each recommendation includes a synopsis of the book. There are even a few celebrity choices in there, so if you’d like to know which book J. K. Rowling and her daughter enjoyed together, take a look!