World's youngest library members?

Last week the Liverpool Echo ran a story about baby Charlie Harris, who was signed up as a library member when he was just eight hours old.

Charlie, who is now just over four months old, was signed up for a library membership by his granddad Noel, who works as a janitor at Halton Lea Library in Liverpool. Noel arrived at the hospital armed with a Bookstart pack, reasoning that ‘the earlier children get comfortable around books the better’, which is something the Bookstart team wholeheartedly agrees with!

Halton Borough Council were hopeful that Charlie's achievement might be recognised as a Guinness World Record (although they've since received the world record equivalent of a Dear John letter - Guinness have rejected the feat in favour of other more eligible categories). And, as an eagle-eyed Bookstart coordinator has reminded us, the impressive eight-hour signup wasn't quite a world-beater. Back in May 2009 we blogged about baby Katie, whose exceedingly quick-off-the-mark dad signed her up to the library exactly two hours and eight minutes after her birth!

Whatever the difference in hours, there's no denying that both Charlie and Katie's parents have achieved something admirable by getting them signed up and introduced to books so early - they've even inspired me to go and get my son his own library card (one of those things I hadn't quite gotten around to!).

Although it might seem unlikely that a tiny baby would need his own library card, there are definite plus points. I've realised that if I sign Angus up for his own card, it doubles the amount of books I can take out – so now when I visit the library I stock up with a big pile of crime fiction, travel writing and chick lit for me, and a stack of board books for Angus so neither of us gets tired of reading the same old stories.

If you need some new stories to liven up your little one’s reading options, take a leaf out of Charlie and Katie’s book (pun definitely intended) and sign your baby up with your local library. You might not get a world record title for it, but you will get access to a huge range of imagination-building adventures.