Next page please As we approach national Storytelling Week 2022 (29th January – 5th February), National Storytelling Week/The Society for Storytelling (sfs.org.uk), we at NEXT PAGE BOOKS have been asked to reflect on storytelling with young children. This is a topic we feel passionately about as we constantly see the powerful impact of stories on our customers and families in our bookshop. We are an independent children’s bookshop, with a particular emphasis on supporting and celebrating diversity, including neurodiversity. We handpick amazing books to be inclusive and reflective of our diverse society which is becoming an easier job with each passing year. For example, in 2020 there was a positive increase in children’s books featuring a minority ethnic character, from 4% in 2017, to 15% (Centre for Literacy ‘Reflecting Realities’ 2021). Diverse and inclusive books are out there and becoming more readily available, but how do we as parents use them? Everyone has a story to tell, so in that sense, storytelling is a universal art and children in particular are open to listening to any and all stories. This innate curiosity and drive to find out about others is how young children make sense of the world and, as they grow up, find out what is possible in the world and in their lives. Within families, we can support this desire to learn about others, and challenge stereotypes as they appear, all through the power of books.
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With very young children, although we know reading together has many benefits – babies love the sound of your voice, you spend close contact time together, you do something special together – we might believe that the content of what we read isn’t as important. And in one sense, it isn’t. Babies can’t understand much to begin with, and complicated concepts take years to develop. So reading anything together – magazines, your books, shopping lists, the news – is great. Babies still get all those amazing benefits. But you, as the family around a baby, can develop your skills through reading those early books – they can help you to choose the language you use with your growing child to reflect your understanding of the world. You can use books to explain topics that you have no direct experience of. As your child grows, you can choose books to support first experiences, or difficult times in your life. And through all of these stories, you are showing your child that everyone is different and that is wonderful. Hearing these diverse stories, your child will develop an innate understanding of this, and if they experience times in their lives when they feel ‘different’, this knowledge of the world will be invaluable. So we’ll finish with a few recommendations of picture books that support different diversities. Remember these can be read by you if these are your experiences, but also, and maybe more importantly, if they are not. This will enable your child to grow in empathy, and truly celebrate difference.
