Rainy day reading keeps the boredom blues away

By CLAIRE TREVETT


When the weather has packed in and the wallet is empty, there is still the age-old remedy of the library to cure school holiday boredom.

Modern libraries are no fuddy duddy boltholes with staff frocked out in tweed.

Instead, at Avondale, a library assistant runs around wearing a crown. Victoria Wakerley acquired the royal headgear in the morning's storytime session and forgot about it.

Many younger children have left, but Jerome (13) and Desmond (8) Safia are still there, avoiding jobs at home and escaping the rain.

Other regulars, like Yohannes Alemu and Abdikani Ahmed, 11, are playing computer games.

But libraries are a different ballgame for Irene Walker, a former librarian whose children have inherited the bookworm gene.

She struggles in through the rain, carrying a huge green boxful of books to return.

Her daughters, Jayran Mansouri, 12, and Rebecca Walker, 10, are such prolific readers that the family has to trawl around various Auckland libraries to find new stock.

"We get a whole green boxful, or sometimes two," said Jayran. "We get about 20 to 25 each a week."

Ms Wakerley said there were many regulars at the library.

"For the older kids, the dating scene seems to go on a bit. They walk past each other and look - it's a bit like a fashion show."

However, the Avondale library has a special attraction for the young.

"We have a secret celebrity hip hop librarian here. Gareth Shute has written a book about hip hop, so all the kids love him because he's interviewed all these famous people like Scribe and he can breakdance."

Auckland Library lifelong learning manager Kaye Lally said some parents treated the library as a childcare centre.

"If we find [the parent] is at the casino all day, then obviously we will do something. And that happens.

"It is not a large problem - we don't get the entire child population of Auckland in - but if we are concerned they are at risk or it is a care issue we talk to the authorities."