The School Library Association have launched a Primary School Library Charter on Monday 15 th February. The charter will help primary head teachers and governors set up and run a school library or increase the contribution that their current library makes to the school’s effectiveness and the pupils’ well being and learning.
At Dolphin Booksellers and at SmithMartin Partnership we are so pleased that the value of libraries in primary schools is really celebrated. A well resourced library with an area and space which is attractive for children to sit and read or to access information is so important. Library spaces we have created have been places that children just love to be in.
Many schools, for many children, are the only place that they have access to a wide range of books. It becomes the very start of their own reading materials and if we are lucky it can be the catalyst for finding the way to local libraries.
Sir Tim Brighouse, associate professor at the Institute of Education , University of London and former Schools Commissioner for London, welcomed the charter, saying: ‘The school library is one of the key indicators of whether a school environment is as best fitted as it can be for learning. If the library is a desert, you start to worry.
Lucy Bakewell, librarian at Hill West Primary School in Sutton Coldfield and the first primary winner of the SLA’s School Librarian of the Year award (2009), believes that a primary school library plays a unique role in ‘grabbing children when they are building their vocabulary and growing their imaginations to introduce them to reading habits and information handling skills which will stand them in good stead later’. She adds: ‘Primary school librarians are also well placed to reach parents and help to create a reading ethos in families as well as in schools.’
Watch this space for more information, we will be interested to find out the response from Gordon Brown to a letter from international colleagues.
Dolphin Booksellers for up to date information and a chance to buy books on line.
Ellie Clarke, Head of English at 
So good to have an award to celebrate diversity in children’s fiction. Frances Lincoln Ltd, the award winning publisher and Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books announced the second Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award.
There is a prize worth £1500 and an option for Frances Lincoln to publish the novel.
Lucy Bakewell of Hill West Primary School, Sutton Coldfield has just been announced as the 
work of three other exceptional school librarians on the Honours List was also celebrated. 
Enthusiastic, creative and talented are just what is needed to become School Librarian of 2009. Some of the best ways to encourage children with reading and books– being interested and enthusiastic, finding ways to be creative with books and of course having the talent to know what is going to appeal.
Keep looking here at 
Heroes and Heroines is the theme of the Old Possum’s 
Support for the project also comes from 
His own picture books are certainly that, try Willy the Wimp or Gorilla. (…links to books below).
3 Illustrators in conversation and a woolly armadillo, that took central stage!
Petr’s, Suzy Goose, just wants to be different to all the other ducks. On her adventures she finds herself in front of a very scary lion.
Ifeoma Onyefulu is more than just a children’s writer. Her books show the colour and vibrance of Africa just as it is, a wealth of culture and life that produce riches all of their own.
Other titles she has written are A is for Africa, which is a complete alphabet of places in Africa. (
At a Children’s Centre opening, where we were holding a City Story event. Ifeoma was famously doing some games with the children on the floor. Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children and Families was opening the Centre and he joined in too, as well as the head teacher.
Stump the white horse, bedraggled and forlorn has a stump in the middle of his forehead. It takes Danni to recognise that he is more than just a horse. 