Another year, another summer and another summer reading challenge.
Bryn’s reading has come along leaps & bounds, an added bonus is he can now happily read in the morning while the rest of the household sleeps till a more sensible time.

Accompanying the reading challenge are all the fun extras including stickers, website, games, library activities and this year there was even an augmented reality app.

It’s interesting to see Bryn’s reading choices. He is generally happy reading most things, he likes detective series & Maisie Hitchens has been popular. He is also keen on book series especially the challenge of reading the entire series. His current obsession with How To Train Your Dragon (currently waiting to read bk 8) has sparked an interest in Vikings & any books involving dragons. A train journey home led to him rediscovering George’s Marvellous Medicine leading to devouring more Roald Dahl.

Bryn & I ventured to Oxford yesterday to visit the Story Museum, I’ve been following the progress of the museum for a few years via twitter so was nice to finally visit in person.

Their current exhibition is, “26 characters, celebrating childhood story heroes”, fantastic portraits of storytellers dressed up as characters from books.

On arrival we were given a trail & map to find all the characters. Bryn is a fan of museum trails & I especially like ones which don’t require much input from me so this was perfect, just a matter of spotting & then using beautiful stamps.

Before we got onto the trail we popped into the throne room which provided a dazzling array of dressing up costumes. Once suitably attired Bryn chose from a range of adjectives to create a character, with the magic of technology, he walked up the red carpet to sit on the throne which announced with a fanfare his new characters name. It took dressing up to a whole new level.

As we explored the museum we were transported to different storybook realms, my favourite was going through a wardrobe pushing past the fur coats to catch a twinkle of fairy lights as we stepped into Narnia. Bryn was very happy in Badger’s front room pretending to stoke the fire & make cups of tea.

All the areas had copies of the books, audio readings & props to help these stories come to life, Bryn was convinced he saw a borrower as he peered through the kitchen grate at the model scene.
Admittedly the lure of completing the trail meant we didn’t spend lots of time in each area or talking about the different stories. We did however add a few books to look for at our next library visit.

Bryn enjoyed playing with the story spinner, a gigantic wooden contraption with characters, scenes & themes to help inspire a story.

We both had a wonderful morning at the story museum, a real celebration of stories intertwined with some fantastic ideas & props to help add that sparkle of magic a good book delivers.