Children Get Inspired to Write Their Own Stories

During Library Card Sign-Up month in September, librarians at the Glasgow City-County library utilized the library’s weekly story-time to further educate area children and their parents about the benefits of the library and the process of signing up for a library card. One book that was read during this weekly activity, Library Mouse, inspired everyone to write their own story and learn about how each story is worth telling.

Library Mouse tells the story of the title character, a mouse, who loves reading and gets inspired to write his own stories. After writing each story, he hides them in different areas of the library for children and workers to find. Each person who finds the mouse’s story in the library is so intrigued to find out who the author is, and invites the mouse to a Meet the Author event. Since the mouse doesn’t want to reveal himself as being the author, he instead invites everyone to be an author and inspires others to write their own story to share.

After reading the story, librarian Leta Godwin got inspired to have area children write and share the stories they have written. A total of four children participated, with each story uniquely written based upon the individual child’s writing level and artistic ability. One story was complete with a cover page and title page, while another story told about how they have loved being in the community and how hard it will be to say good-bye. “It was so fun to give these children the opportunity to write and illustrate their own book,” said Godwin, continuing “We welcomed the children to read their stories to other children during story-time.”

According to Godwin, the children who participated where a little shy in reading their story to the other children, but were open to having the librarians read the story upon completion. “It was amazing to see how much talent these children have and the thought process they had when writing their book,” said Godwin.