Stephanie Webb, Librarian at Brompton Library, writes:
We were very happy to host Faith and Mary from Healthier Life 4 You last week for a feelgood session of African Dance. We knew we were in for a good time as feedback from other sessions at North Kensington and Kensington Central libraries had been very positive.
Faith and Mary from Healthier Life 4 You at Brompton Library, April 2015
Faith and Mary deliver a gentle workout – you’d hardly know you’re exercising as you can’t help moving to the rhythm of the African music. The audience was on the young side and were a bit unsure to start with, but by the end – and with the help of their parents and carers – they were showing me their moves on the way out!
Highly recommended and we hope to see them again soon.
A Belated Happy New Year to all our friends and readers!
We hope you all had wonderful holidays and are ready to face the joys and challenges of 2014. If you are new to this blog, it is an insight into some of the great activities and events that have taken place recently or will be happening soon. It also allows our staff to share their thoughts and experiences of working in our library. Enjoy!
Resident pop-culture geek Christian Stevens writes: Every week Brompton receives new stock that is tailored to suit the demands of our readers and local residents. Some of our new titles that I would recommend for fans of adventure books are popular titles such as Clive Cussler’s Mirage and The Tombs, as well asChris Ryan’s Extreme Most Wanted. I have also ordered in some new graphic novels including Crecy and Fell, two great books from one of my all-time favourite writers – the legendary Warren Ellis, and the first three volumes of Ghostbusters by IDW -a stylish comic adaptation of the original movies including fantastically ghoulish artwork and amusing storylines that really captures the feel of the 1984 classic movie. I would also recommend checking out the new thriller movie Jack Reacher (based on popular Lee Child novel One Shot), in which Tom Cruise is surprisingly watchable as the eponymous former military police officer called in to deal with a mass-murdering sniper. Sports fans can now also rent a copy of Rush starring Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt, whose fierce rivalry with Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season is legendary.
They say the greatest wealth is health, well now you can get some free advice from a health trainer on the second Wednesday of every month between 2-4pm. This is a chance for anyone over 18 to get a free health-check, diet advice and healthy lifestyle information to help you reach your personal goals.
Our Health Trainer
Our Communities, Our Stories
Stephanie Webb Librarian, writes: Here at Brompton we’re half way through a really exciting project bringing together older residents with young local school children. We’re working with the lovely “Celebrate My Library” (Hilary and Victoria) and our new partners, the Kensington and Chelsea Older Residents Forum.
Planning the sessions
We had a planning meeting with our older residents at the beginning of January and then mid-month we had the first event giving our 2 groups time to compare life as a child during and after WW2 with life as a child now. The kids couldn’t believe the older residents didn’t eat pizza when they were young and but our young Philippina could chat away quite happily with the older Trinidadian resident who was brought up among fruit trees and farm animals!
Our Community, Our Stories. The dress you can see hanging up is the blue silk wedding dress that belonged to the mother of one of our residents.
Working at the clothes table our young volunteer works on a mood board to convey fashion of the rich and famous of the time.
At the end of the session each young person read out their creative writing which Celebrate My Library have taken away to craft into a fantastic book. At the beginning of March we’ll all get to together again for the book to be revealed and to celebrate a fantastic experience all round.
We had great feedback from young and old alike who all thought it was an excellent idea and the older residents especially said how much they’d enjoyed it!
Hieroglyphics Workshop at Brompton Chatterbooks
Think like an Egyptian!
This month the Chatterbooks reading group explored one of the most ancient languages and created their own words and phrases out of the symbols.
Children learnt about hieroglyphs by writing and reading, using a worksheet and a number of games. The group focused on hieroglyphs related to pharaohs or to gods.
They also wrote their names in the beautiful ancient Egyptian script.
By Babita Sinha; Senior Customer Services Assistant
Love Music, Love Reading
David Bushell; resident rock-star and graphic designer, writes: One of the best things about working in the library is constantly coming across the hidden gems on the shelves. I’m always surprised by how many items I see where I think “oh, I want to read that!” or in the case of the CD collection, “oh I want to listen to that!” Coming across the critically acclaimed Neil Young autobiography, I thought the same, and again when sorting through the ‘Y’ section in the music catalogue. This gave me the idea of the current display, where you can choose from a wide range of music related biographies, and in some cases, issue the CD to listen to as well. Perhaps, if you’re in the mood, you can give yourself a sound track while you read! If you love music and reading as much as I do, this can be for you.
rbkc libraries blog 