What are people who can’t read doing in a Library?

Singing, doing actions, meeting their peers…

That’s what under-3′s were doing this morning in the community Library at Wentworthville, Sydney. And on other Tuesday mornings when their Moms can get away from home for about 20 minutes which is about the outside of the maximum you can keep the crawlers and toddlers under control.There were some grandmas and one Dad too, looking a bit sheepish when he had to do some actions.

The Librarian hands out the song sheets and the adults sing along and try to get the children to do the actions , demonstrated with a very lifelike baby doll by the jolly Librarian. She handed out some feel-touch  books and some  castatnets to increase the noise and feelings of particpation.

I thought it was a great thing for lonely young mothers. All in all, they seemed to enjoy the  meeting much more and the babies too got a little social interaction.  One young Tamil mother came home with us later; she seemed very lonely here, with her husband out the whole day. Young mothers these days have given up their careers to have the baby and miss their social life very much. More so, when  they live in  a foreign land, with little help and contacts. This did seem like a good community effort to bridge the gap partially. We met the young mother from the apartment above at the library while we rarely run into her at home!

And of course the library was great too.

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