QUALITY STORYTENTS
A resource for family, early childhood and community literacy workers
Snack typically happens at the halfway point, but this is not necessary. Sometimes, a storytent runs more smoothly when snack is distributed earlier. Children often pass snack around to other children. We usually ask them to choose one or two things from the snack box - a 5 litre plastic box with a cover - depending on the number of children present. (For more on snack, see Snack).
We employ a liberal book borrowing policy as part of our concern for relationship. We ask that children borrow no more than three books at a time, though this is open for negotiation. We also ask children to delay choosing books to borrow until they are ready to leave. This reduces conflict and the appearance of hoarding. In order to preserve a sufficient volume of crowd-pleasers and other books we have found to be especially successful, we use a sticker system. Red stickered books are to stay in the tent: books stickered with any other colour can be borrowed.
When children borrow books, they are not nagged to bring them back. If a particular child seems to be ‘collecting’ books and shows no inclination to return them, we negotiate a new borrowing limit. No child is punished by being cut off from borrowing books. When, as happens occasionally, a borrowed book turns up in a yard sale, we buy it back without comment. In all of this, the commanding assumptions are that making books part of children's quality worlds is fundamental to supporting their literacy development, and that having readers in the tent is more important than having books.