Kennings, Kennings and More Kennings

Kennings are alive and well and living in Rochdale. I quickly put together a Canny Kennings competition to celebrate the launch of the new Rochdale Central Library at Number One Riverside. here are some of the entries. Hollie won with this incredibly imaginative Kenning play together nasty never growing stronger something sweeter never better friends forever what am I? friendship I've never seen a Kenning that has used emotion for its theme. Usually we have objects, people or animals. What a brilliant twist. Libby contibuted one about my favourite amphibian big jumper loud croaker green hopper pond swimmer fly eater non drinker what am I? a frog! Anum gave us eye sighter blue tweeter game keeper name signer large facer time holder what am I? a computer Zak's Kenning goes like this green monster fire breather tail swisher loud roarer scaly eater terrible man muncher sharp scratcher what am I? a dragon Rochdale has very talented young people who enjoy playing with words

Welcome to your new Rochdale Central Library

Saturday 27th April will stick in my memory for a long, long time. For all the right reasons.I hope you all enjoyed meeting Tommy Donbavand and Craig Bradley, what a performance! Tommy is the author of Scream Street - and more, a notable more being Doctor Who. I'd recommend any school to book him. Craig Bradley is pants - and he won't mind me telling you that either as he does a special job with "Poetry is not pants" as his marching call. Norman Warwick acted as Master of Ceremonies for us and did his usual brilliant job. There were many opportunities for families to get involved in creative writing on the day, prizes were offered for the best Book Spine Poem and the best Kenning. The Where's Wally Treasure Hunt proved very popular with over 70 entries. Younger children were not forgotten with a colouring competition to try out their skills and Irene Peachey was on hand to sign them up for Bookstart Bear Club. The Reverend Margaret Smith was a star, volunteering to help make sure the children knew exactly what was going on and her routine for "Is poetry cool or does it leave you in a spin?" has to be seen to be believed. Vickke did us proud with her face painting, a riot of colour and character in every face. Jason Grimshaw aka Ryan Thomas opened Bean coffee shop, much to the delight of many teenage girls. The whole place was really buzzing, I look forward to keeping the feel good factor going for a long time yet.

A Star Is Born

Look out for the activity table in your library during December.
You can make a festive star or two and it's available whenever the library is open.
The sheet of card has one star to colour in, cut out and assemble and two stars to use as templates to cut out a design you like. Use the Christmas cards we have recycled from last year.
Take note of where you need to cut the stars to join them together, cut it in the wrong place and it won't look like a star when you put it together!

Class Visit

A class from St.John's RCP visited The Wheatsheaf Library on Monday. I shared some stories with them, Nick Sharratt's Once Upon a Time, where you make up the story each time so every telling is different, one of my favourites. That was followed by Sam Lloyd's You're not so scary, Sid, another brilliant story which has a hand puppet monster in the book. Then followed the usual organised chaos as all thirty children looked for books and all wanted to ask me questions at the same time. As usual, the library was buzzing. Nothing unusual in that, I've been doing it in Rochdale alone for the last twenty two years. What made a difference was staff and public commenting on how vibrant the library was with the children so enthusiastically lively in it.
And we had about a dozen new members for the library and the Young Surfer's Club, our way of ensuring they can use the People's Network with parent's consent.

Beauty and the Beast

We have a competition to win a family ticket (two adults two children) to see Beauty and the Beast at The Gracie Fields Theatre.
Sounds easy but it isn't that easy - you must describe the story of Beauty and the Beast USING JUST SIX WORDS
Hurry - entries must be in to your nearest Rochdale Library by saturday 27th Novemeber

V.I.P. Table at Holy Family School

The highlight of my week was to be invited to Holy Family RCP as one of two V.I.P.'s on the top table at lunch. This came from my work in the school a couple of weeks earlier, when I received this wonderful letter from the Headteacher, Helen Arnold "Dear Ray, I am writing to thank you for your recent visits to our school this week as part of our Book Week activities. The children in Key Stages 1 & 2 had a wonderful time. You brought the books to life for them and your visit really was a highlight of the week.
We look forward to planning visits to Balderstone Library in the spring term for the Key Stage 2 children and we hope to see you then.
Once again, many thanks for a truly engaging and stimulating experience for the children into the world of literature."

For the V.I.P. Lunch pupils had been chosen to join us and staff waited on table. Apart from an excellent lunch the company was brilliant. All the children were spellbound by the occasion which was really special. Although a one off at the moment it may well happen again. I asked Shane, sat next to me which other V.I.P.'s he would invite next time. "I don't really know any V.I.P's apart from you"
"Well, How about celebrities then?"
"CHERYL COLE!"

Home Educated Children

We were involved with a session at Rochdale Town Hall for Home Educated Children. It was a well supported and very encouraging afternoon. As a result we now have a library card on offer for parents of home educated children to borrow resources from the library. It works much the same as our teacher's ticket does for teachers in sschools.

Balderstone and the Monster in the Park

I was asked to create my Frankenstein's Monster story at Balderstone Library, or more accurately, in the park surrounding the library. The Friends of Balderstone Park provided refreshments and a huge number of families were scared to death (not) as I told the tale of the building of the monster. This is helped along by "feely boxes" representing bits of the monster, for example, "The first body wasn't very good, but Igor managed to find some fingers and toes that he though could be used - and in a box only big enough to get one hand in you are encouraged to feel the fingers (part cooked carrots smeared with margarine). My favourite (and last) part of the monster is the brain - a par-boiled cauliflower, liberally covered in marge. Even the smell adds to the atmosphere of the story.
This year the story ended "and with one sigh deep in it's throat the monster came to life. It spoke "I want......I WANT hot dogs and jacket potatoes, now being served by the Friends of Balderstone Park" stampede of eager hungry listeners!

Rochdale Readers

Rochdale Readers goes from strength to strength.
Originally a children's reading group, it has now evolved into a creative writing group. We meet about once a month and poems are published on the blog. There is a simple craft activity for the younger ones and perhaps a few stories too. The age range is from 3-13 at the moment!
you can find them at
http://rochdalereaders.blogspot.com

National Poetry Day

We teamed up with the Youth Bus and created poems at the secondary schools on the theme of "Home" for this year's National Poetry Day.
Rochdale's take on the theme was "Home Is Where the Art Is" Siddal Moor and Redwood schools produced some fantastic poems which have been printed in a booklet to mark the day.
here's "Our Tin Can" from Redwood afternoon group

From a mass of people
The grey Beanie-Genie
Magics out of the tin
Wearing a very fetching
Carmen Miranda fruit salad
On his head

for a full explanation you will just have to get in touch!