Songs to sing, stories to hear — Tuesday mornings at Brown Library are becoming a popular hangout spot for children, ages infant to five.
The invitation to share in story time at Brown Library is extended to all children accompanied by an adult. The theme-based half hour of activities and stories changes from week to week — sometimes all activities revolve around animals or weather or birthdays or whatever topic Terry Rollins, children’s librarian and story time’s organizer, dreams up.
“Oh, it changes on a week to week basis,” Rollins said. “Right now, we’re doing some stories on food.”
For the past two years, story time has been an ongoing event at the library but now that summer’s over and school is back in session, Rollins wanted to put out a reminder that younger children have the story-time option.
Just as the themes vary from week to week, Rollins said, the number of children attending, and the ages of those children, do too: anywhere from five to 30 children, from infants to 5-year-olds, come to hear him tell stories each Tuesday.
While Rollins hopes that the programs teach the children a love of stories and reading, and especially a love of libraries, he said the library is imparting some valuable experience to these pre-school-aged kids: the opportunity to learn how to get along with others.
“(Story time) first and foremost teaches them how to interact with other children,” Rollins explained. “Some of them have not had that exposure — we give them that.”
Story time is held from 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the children’s room of Brown Library, 122 Van Norden St., Washington. For more information, call Terry Rollins at 252-946-4300.