| Welcome to Issue 176 of 🍏Lunch N Learn with Lindsay🍏. Did you know that this week (in the UK) it’s Children’s Book Week? This is an annual celebration of books for young people and the joy of reading. Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the UK. I was reminded of a Lunch n Learn message I shared back in 2021 and I’m going to share it again with you today – as ever, for some real “food for thought”. I had a lovely “out of work hours” text conversation with Sarah Howson, Founder & Director of Strategic PA Network and Recruitment the other evening. Sarah has the most gorgeous young boys that I have had the pleasure to meet and I love following their cheeky antics on socials! When I first met Sarah I gifted all my daughter’s childrens books to her boys. During our text conversation, I got the cutest video of her youngest son “reading” one of his favourite books about an owl and sharing some very impressive “twit-twoo” sound effects! Sarah sent a photo of the book insert which had “this book belongs to Lottie Taylor” on it and it brough back such happy memories of storytime (before bedtime) with Lottie. Lottie’s favourite book was an Elmer the Elephant board book (not one that we gifted to Sarah as the edges were rather tatty from overhandling and it was in a bit of a sorry state from being over-loved!). I remember vividly trying to turn 2 pages at once and shortening storytime (it had been a loooong day and “in the know” parents will empathise with this “2 page turn” strategy to bring forward bedtime…). Lottie was so cross that I’d missed a bit of the story out. Her pre-empting and knowledge of every page of the story was evident. It got me to thinking about the familiarity and predictability of situations and their resulting comfort. It’s comforting isn’t it when we know “what’s coming next” and we can confidently turn the page with a certainty of narrative to our story? When we miss narrative, when we don’t know what the next page of our story contains or indeed (in as in the “2-page turn” strategy) when we miss content, this can be incredibly unsettling. With predictability and familiarity removed, we are faced with different content and a foreign narrative. Remember though, with difference and change comes opportunity and the promise of a new exciting narrative. Balance this with the return of familiarity and some predictability on the horizon too. Maybe I would be taking it too far with the Fairy Tale-esque “and they lived happily ever after” but who knows?! What do you think? |
