When the current Government came into power they introduced a set of ‘austerity measures (well… ideological measures masquerading as ‘austerity’….) and areas saw cuts to local public services such as leisure facilities and libraries.
Regular readers of my blog will be well aware that I adore books. I first got into blogging when writing book reviews and this blog is often populated with reviews of books that I am reading with the children. Books for me are the window into the world, be it a way to acquire knowledge or a way to lose yourself in a good story.
I used to take Daniel to storytime at the library quite regularly, but we haven’t been for a long time. He got quite restless for a time and I found it hard to manage both him and Emma. Perhaps it is something I will try again over the coming weeks.
As I am reading more around approaches to home education I have made use of our local library service, which I have to say is pretty good. The library is open regularly (in fact I don’t think there has been a cut to opening hours) and they are really geared up for welcoming children.
We visited last week and Daniel was really keen to take lots of books home with us, and was most concerned when we came to check them out that we didn’t have any for Emma, so we headed back in to choose a book for Emma.
My library haul included the books below…
I have never read any books by Alexander McCall Smith, so I had hoped this ‘quick read’ would be a good intro. However it wasn’t really my style of book. The other book, Trouble on the Heath was a good quick read and was nice to get stuck into. How Children Learn is by John Holt and I have heard some great stuff about his work so a looking forward to starting on this whilst we are away.
Daniel and Emma came away with a stack of book, but one called What Noise Does a Rabbit Make?
My library also have a facility for downloading audio books. I have been making use of this recently as I like to listen to audio books whilst out running. Audio books are (surprisingly) expensive so being able to loan them is brilliant, and the library is extensive too which is of course a bonus.
Over the summer I am hoping to make much better use of the library service and try to take out more books.
Has your local library service been affected by cuts? Do you make use of your own local libraries?
I love libraries! Lots of lovely childhood memories of being at the library and undertaking reading challenges in the summer! We do use the library but mostly for Nancy, I really should go there for myself sometime soon x
I like to grab a book. Daniel chose my last one… a book by Richard Madeley(!) planning to start it this weekend x
I LOVE going to the library with Molly. I will admit that I didn’t use it as much as I should have before I have M but now we got at least once a week. M gets so excited when we go there for out singing club but also just to read some books. I hate seeing cuts at libraries and there have been round here. Library and leisure centres are two of our most used facilities and both are facing cut backs. They also threatened to take away 70% of the parks in the area too as it was too expensive to looks after the equipment. If they do all these cut backs our children will have nothing and they wonder why kids are getting obese and playing computer games so much…
oh gosh, that is terrible! I am lucky that our local authority puts a lot of value on libraries and leisure so no real cuts filtered down yet…..