| Newsletter for Bookstart scheme coordinators January 2008 | Download pdf 600Kb |  |
Happy New Year!
News from Bookstart
Bookstart donation to Salvation Army 
Bookstart kick-started the Salvation Army’s Christmas Present Appeal by donating over 50,000 books for children aged 0-6, distributed within communities, to people of all faiths, in time for Christmas.
The Salvation Army’s Christmas Present Appeal collects presents to distribute in local communities during December. With more than 750 local churches and community centres, The Salvation Army is able to identify local needs to ensure that everyone who deserves a new present at Christmas will receive a gift.
Major Ian Harris, Director of Social Services for The Salvation Army in the UK and Ireland, said:
"This is a marvellous start to The Salvation Army's Christmas Present Appeal. We are so grateful to Bookstart for this fantastic donation and we hope the books, which will make excellent stocking-fillers, will also encourage young children and parents to read together in the New Year."
Annual Review
The new Bookstart annual review has been published and will be soon be arriving on your doorstep.
The new booklet is entitled the Bookstart Review: A New Strategic Vision and gives a detailed overview of the programme, its achievements and the next stage of development – all in glorious Technicolor.
We will be sending fifteen out to each scheme, so we hope they will reach you very soon.
The booklets will also be available to order from the online catalogue at www.bookstart.org.uk/materials-catalogue.
Other new materials
Cotton bags, congratulations cards, health book stickers and a height chart are some of the new additions to the Bookstart materials catalogue.
Go to Online Catalogue for all Bookstart materials…
www.bookstart.org.uk/materials-catalogue
Parents Forum
We now have over 3,000 names of parents and carers who have pledged their support for Bookstart in the Parents Forum.
This is a great show of support from parents for the scheme, and we’d love to double this figure in the coming months.
You can still order the Registration Cards through the online catalogue.
Please ask enthusiastic parents to complete the forms and send them back to Book House.
Parents newsletter
All parents who have signed up to join the forum will receive our bi-monthly e-newsletter Magic Times, the second edition of which was sent out in December.
Please go to www.bookstart.org.uk/newsletters to see the latest issue.
Goode-bye James
We are saying a sad farewell this month to James Goode, who has been our excellent events organizer at Bookstart for the last year and a half.
As well as attending countless exhibitions around the country, James organized last year’s Bookstart conference and, most notably, orchestrated the wonderful National Bookstart Day celebrations this year, which were a fantastic success.
Thank you James for all your hard work, and best wishes in your next role.
Other news from Booktrust
Ed Balls visits Laycock Primary School to support Booktime.
On Wednesday 19 December Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls visited Laycock Primary School in Islington, London, to celebrate Booktime.
Booktime is a nationwide programme set up by Pearson and Booktrust and supported this year by the DCSF to promote reading for pleasure and encourage parents and carers to read aloud with their children.
Over the last two years, Booktime has given close to a million free books to children starting primary school across the UK.
The Secretary of State entertained a class of 26 reception children aged four to five years on their last day of term, reading this year’s book, the children’s classic Funnybones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.
With help from Local Authorities and Library Services, Booktime has delivered book packs to reception-aged children in nearly 19,000 schools in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland this term, with Wales to follow in the Spring Term 2008.
For more information about Booktime see www.booktime.pearson.com
Nestle Children’s Book Prize
The winners of the 2007 Nestlé Children's Book Prize were announced on 12 December 2007 at a ceremony at the British Library.
The prize, which is administered by Booktrust, is one of the UK’s longest running prizes and has helped launch the careers of many of today’s top children’s writers, including JK Rowling and Lauren Child, who have each won the prize three times.
Over the years around half a million schoolchildren have been involved in choosing the winning authors.
Go to Booktrust's children's books website for more details of this year’s prize.
Bookstars
News from Bookstart schemes around the country.
Autumnwatch 
Children at Balderstone Library in Rochdale enjoy the great outdoors as Rhymetimes take in a nature trail.
This autumn Bookstart in Rochdale got involved with Breathing Places, a national campaign that encourages people of all ages to find out at first hand about their local wildlife.
They decided to hold an outdoor celebration during their regular weekly Storytime and Sing, Sign and Rhyme Time sessions.
“We had a Nature Walk where the children and parents observed the local wildlife and enjoyed collecting leaves. After the walk the children made lovely leaf collages, leaf prints and autumn pictures. We displayed the works of art on our Artist Tree.
“We also had stories and sang rhymes connected to our Autumnwatch theme. Ten adults and 13 children attended the Storytime event and 17 adults and 19 children attended the Sing, Sign and Rhyme Time event. Everyone had a lovely time.”
Balderstone library worker
For more information about Breathing Places, go to www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces.
Crown green songs and rhymes
Harlepool Libraries have just started running a literacy-based group up in a bowling pavilion in a local park. Fiona Marshall-Bell, Bookstart Coordinator, explains:
“I started this because many grandparents, parents and childminders were asking if we could provide something for the under 5s in that particular area of the town. I have set it up to run from 9.30am-11am, and we have a variety of toys, craft activities and lots of books. The last half hour is fruit and juice then we read stories and sing nursery rhymes (using the Bookstart Rhymetime songs).
“In the summer or when the weather is okay, I hope to have lots of activities going on outside and have asked for funds to buy tents, wigwams, bug catchers, binoculars etc so we can have lots of fun!!
“We also have a member of library staff who is going to buy some scrap books and use them with the children and adults to build up a portfolio of all the activities they do at the group.”
On the buses 
St Helens Bookstart have received a Highly Commended Award from Merseyside Transport Awards for their partnership with Arriva to get the Bookstart packs out to clinics.
A presentation ceremony was held at Haydock Library with representatives from the PCT, Arriva and the Library Service, the Mayor, Councillors and of course Bookstart Bear!
“If you are eagle-eyed, you may notice that Arriva's destination on the board read Bookstart which we thought was great!
“It was a lovely presentation and great recognition for all the hard work and partnership that goes into Bookstart in St Helens.”
Kathryn Boothroyd
Bookstart coordinator St Helens
Schemes produce their own Rhymetime DVDs
Glasgow have launched a new Rhyme Time Book & DVD
The book contains the top 20 favourite rhymes that parents/carers and children share at the 30 weekly Bounce & Rhyme Times that take place across the city. The book also contains all the actions, with beautiful illustrations by Mandy Sinclair. The DVD gives a demonstration of all the actions whilst being performed at the local Bounce and Rhyme Times.
Parents can borrow the book from the library or purchase a copy to take home and share with their children.
Ann-Marie Burns
Bookstart coordinator Glasgow
Denbighshire Bookstart has produced a promotional bilingual DVD aimed at families, students and partner agencies.
The film features rhymetimes in action and interviews in Welsh and English with parents and grandparents, Bookstart workers, scheme coordinator and library staff. The aims of Bookstart are explained and the key messages reinforced with on-screen captions.
Bookstart Coordinator, Bethan Hughes, said:
"We wanted a DVD which would give the Bookstart and library message for parents and families which we could also use in clinic groups and with school pupils and childcare students. The rhymetimes and outreach work is so successful that we wanted as many people as possible to know about it.
"Filming was great fun and the families were delighted to talk about the benefits of Bookstart and using the library. We had a launch party with cake and coffee on National Bookstart Day, and we're busy distributing the DVD now. It’s proved to be such a powerful advocacy tool for us."
For further information about the DVD, including purchasing a copy, contact Bethan at
bethan.hughes@denbighshire.gov.uk
Bringing Bookstart to prisons
In Leeds we are lucky enough to have two readers in residence as part of the Paul Hamlyn Free with Words project, who are affectionately known in Leeds as the Pennys!
Penny Grant and Penny Pinn work hard to raise the awareness of Bookstart and help those held in prison gain confidence in reading with their children. They also gift Bookstart packs to people who may not readily come into contact with agencies who distribute them.
Penny Grant, based at Armley Prison, has delivered special family visits with the staff at the visitor centres involving Bookstart on many occasions. When there is a special family visit, Penny finds out the ages of the children and gifts the packs to the father to gift to their children. This works extremely well as it feels to them that they are giving their child a gift and gives them an opportunity to show some interest and involvement in their child’s education.
Penny has done this at special family Christmas visits and recently at an Eid special family visit. On this occasion, she distributed the packs and offered them the option of having a dual language book which was well received by parents.
Penny Grant says ‘At one Christmas visit last year, I was very heartened to see several men, with their children sitting on their knees, reading a book to them from the Bookstart pack. This was a moment I wish I’d been able to capture on film! I was standing next to the Prison Governor at this time who was very complimentary and pleased to see the packs being distributed and the men reading with their children.’
On the other side of Leeds, at Wetherby Prison Penny Pinn has on ten occasions delivered play sessions in the visits hall crèche, where she has gifted Bookstart packs.
These sessions have been themed around many national themes including the Family Reading Campaign (Jan 07), Easter, the Summer Reading Challenge and of course Bookstart Day. Penny has now established a rota of volunteers to run the crèche during visits on a Saturday afternoon, and they will be gifting packs Bookstart packs to families.
Lorraine Lee
Bookstart Coordinator Leeds
Prize Cow
Joe Charlton, aged 2, from Tweedbank, Galashiels was the lucky winner of the ‘Create A Highland Coo’ competition, run in libraries across Scotland as part of the Bookstart in Scotland Day 2007 celebrations.
The theme this year was Highland Culture, and Joe’s brightly coloured picture was selected from thousands of entries submitted across Scotland.
Joe was joined at Earlston Library by library staff, Councillor John Paton-Day, Jeremy Purvis MSP, the Bookstart Bear and children from Brookfield Childcare, who all took part in a Bookstart Rhymetime session, followed by a special celebratory cake. Jeremy Purvis MSP presented Joe with his prize of £100 of books.
Gill Swales
Bookstart coordinator Scottish Borders
More awards
Congratulations to two scheme coordinators who have recently won awards for their fantastic hard work on Bookstart.
Samantha Green was presented with a Hull City Council Star Performer award for her work at Bookstart in Hull.
In June Sam was badly affected by the floods in Hull, with both her home and car flooded. She has been living in a caravan since then. Sam does a great deal of outreach work and without her car she found it extremely difficult travelling around the city, particularly during the school summer holidays when she was running events. Her commitment and dedication to her work ensured that no session was cancelled and she has remained cheerful and positive in these most difficult times.
Sue Wink was named Children's Worker of the Year which she accepted on behalf of all the staff in North East Lincilnshire who are doing such a fantastic job.
“The nomination featured the role of Bookstart, so even more people know about us.”
Many congratulations to Sam and Sue.