Remembering children’s books and libraries – a report

It was a privilege to participate in two recent events at Putney and Balham libraries on 31 May and 7 June 2017 as part of Wandsworth Heritage Festival.

Some of the books displayed from Wandsworth’s Children’s Books collection

At Putney, it was delightful to see the range of early children’s books selected by children’s librarian Ferelith Hordon, from fairytales to Enid Blyton and many, many more. Ferelith is a font of knowledge on children’s books and also shared some of her own memories, while it was also very interesting to hear memories and comments from the audience. Special thanks to Ferelith and to Diane Norman who brought in a few of her own books, such as Heidi (see image below). It was also a good chance to talk about the memories we’ve gathered through the project’s interviews, of children’s books ranging from The Hungry Caterpillar and Alice in Wonderland to Blyton’s (the most frequently recalled books, by about half of the people we talked to, were Blyton’s). In particular, I talked about how people remember scenes of reading at least as much as the content of what they read, as where Alison Barton remembered her dad theatrically reading Alice, and Sandra Newnham recalls sitting on the bus with her nana and a board book. We also took a look at Strewwelpeter (translated Shock Headed Peter), a book recalled by Johanna Williams, who rightly describes it as ‘very gruesome’: its moralistic stories include the boy who sucked his thumbs and had them cut off.

Diane Norman with Heidi and photograph of herself as a child with the book.

At Balham there was much enthusiasm for libraries! We have found that people value libraries as public spaces as well as sources of books (as reported in earlier blost posts on this website; see below). Libraries have helped people to get through difficult periods of childhood, for example, while they provide places to study, enabling older children and young adults to get the grades and opportunities they hoped for. They provide spaces for individuals to have some quiet time to think but also social spaces for reading groups to meet, and our discussion led into Alison Barton’s (librarian and book group facilitator) wonderful observations about reading groups, not least how different people experience books very differently according to their life experiences, and how peoples’ initial reactions to a book can be completely changed by what others say about it. It was also fantastic to hear the discussion amongst everybody who came along, to hear a range of memories and thoughts about libraries, including Pat Kahn’s childhood memory of living across the road from a library which offered her a hugely exciting sense of independence, freedom and discovery.

I will next be writing a post to contribute to the Libraries Taskforce website (now posted here). We are keen to use all this material to help support the case for libraries and to inform how libraries continue in future.

Thanks again for all your contributions, and also to those who have commented on various posts.