So my five Tea Party Tails story times are over. As an emerging writer for a slightly older age group (11 upwards) designing and running these workshops was an illuminating experience, through which I learnt a great deal. I would like to thank all the support staff at Central Library, Bitterne Library, Cobbett Road Library, Woolston Library, Lordshill Library, Portswood Library and Burgess Road Library for all their help running them, and for welcoming me so warmly. Our libraries would not exist without these teams of staff and volunteers. They are heroes.
The idea for the workshops began through a discussion with librarians Allison Kirby and Alison Biczysko when I expressing my great love for The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Alison suggested that I frame the storytimes around this story, which I was really glad to do, but it also required some thinking and careful research.
In my short story The Tigress’ Invitation to Tea, I gently tease at the gendered dynamics of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. As a child in the 1980s, raised by a stay at home mum, I don’t think the gendering of this book registered at all. But as a feminist mother of a boy, it has begun to trouble me (and others) a little. I still love the story, but for public storytimes I felt that it needed another kind of book, with a different approach, to make things fun and current. I wanted a book that would speak to it, but with a different tone and perspective.
In the weeks leading up to Tea Party Tails I read a lot of big cat related picture books (I love my job!). There are some beautiful ones out there. Burgess Road Library showcased a great range of tiger ones in anticipation of the workshops! I particularly loved Catherine Rayner’s gorgeous Augustus and His Smile and Narinder Dhami’s charming A Tiger for Breakfast.
But Mark Sperring and Sarah Warburton’s book Daddy Lion’s Tea Partywas absolutely perfect. It is filled with delightful comic word play and brilliant illustrations. Most importantly, for me, it features a tea party organised by a male lion for his boy cubs. The moment when “Daddy Lion lifts his favourite china teacup daintily to his lips” is my favourite genderbending moment in recent children’s literature. Where The Tiger Who Came to Tea is very understated, delicate storytelling, Daddy Lion’s Tea Party features a stinky skunk and complete chaos. They are perfect complements and children and parents in all the sessions found the book a hoot.
I also designed a treasure trail based on the illustrations in Daddy Lion’s Tea Party which was a useful additional activity to have for children if they finished the craft quickly. I am ever grateful, in my academic and creative life, for doing Art A Level and for being able to draw a little. It is a skill that comes in handy in a surprising number of situations.
Then I needed a craft that would fit with the theme. As the storytimes were in the summer holidays, it was possible that a wide range of children of different age groups might attend, so I wanted a simple craft that could lend itself to very basic making skills but which could also fire a more developed creative imagination. I did some research on Pinterest, and found a fun tipping teapot tutorial by Danya Banya. This has proved to be a highlight of the workshop in the feedback I’ve received.
After the first workshop at Central Library featuring the two books and the craft I realised that we needed some kind of ice-breaking, get up and move story at the beginning, and more interactivity throughout the storytime.
After further research I found The Zoo Hullabaloo! by Jan Ormerod and Lindsey Gardner, a book of all kinds of animal movements which proved to be perfect. This book has some obvious animal moves, such as stretching like a giraffe, but it also has unusual ones that made the children pause and think, like a slow loris and a turkey gobble. It’s a really fun book. I bought mine from Ebay, and was delighted to discover it was a library book, stamps, lamination and all!
o
I also built in interactivity into the readings. I used my special pop up version of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and my original plan was to have children come up and do the pop ups. But this really disrupted the flow of the reading and some of the younger children found it difficult to do.
So instead, I created a story sack. Story sacks are brilliant – children love the act of rummaging, and the unpredictability of what they might find in a mysterious bag (or pillowcase in this case!) I filled the sack with my son’s tea party toys and stuffed animals that feature in both books. Pride of place was this beauty:
At points in the stories when various things like sandwiches, teapots or cakes are mentioned, I invited children to come up and find the thing we’d just read about in the sack. These were laid out on the picnic rug on plates, and animals arranged around them. At the end of the session, there was an animal tea party in miniature right in front of us!
Tidying this up also was a great way to end the session and transition to the craft activity. Unlike at home, children love to tidy up in group activities!
I’ve loved designing these sessions, and running them was a great deal of fun. In my next post, I’ll reflect on what I learnt from doing them.
SO:WRITE STORIES 