Not an introduction:

There’s a meme, perhaps known to all librarians in Poland, where a mom holding her smartphone asks another mom holding a book how she makes it so her kid likes to read. I’m sure that I don’t need to tell my fellow librarians what kinds of family values are transferred by just engaging in reading. If anyone, however, needs to hear an expert speak, I recommend reading the one and only professor Grzegorz Leszczyński, who writes among other things, that “Listening to books is a magical training of the heart and the mind. The more you read, tell stories, talk and spend family time with the book, the more wisdom, smiles, mutual understanding, as well as observations, thoughts and emotions you produce” (Pierwsze czytanki dla…, Instytut Książki 2019). I also encourage you to become acquainted with the resources shared by ABCXXI Cała Polska Czyta Dzieciom Foundation (ed. All of Poland Reads to Kids), who besides their flagship campaign, also has a program called “Rodzinne czytanie” (ed. “Family reading”), which propagates the so-called Reading Families’ Clubs among libraries, preschools and other institutions. And this article is exactly about it - how to organize it, and why it is worth having a Reading Families’ Club at your library. The Reading Families’ Club, which has been in operation in Jasło for almost 10 years now, will serve as the example.

What Reading Families’ Clubs are:

The main concept behind the creation of a Reading Families’ Club according to the ABCXXI Foundation program, is to create a space for meetings, making connections, sharing inspiration, information, discussion about books and collective family reading for those who read to their kids every day. The families and institutions which declare to start a club (you only need three families to form it), sign up for the “Rodzinne czytanie” program, and using the support from the Foundation as well as their own ideas, they start organizing their own meetings. The meetings take place at least once a month. Those, who are eager to start their own club can find all the required information about the signup process, the terms and conditions, ideas for the activities and the important details regarding the partnership with the Foundation at http://www.rodzinneczytanie.pl/kluby-czytajacych-rodzin.

How it works at the Public Municipal Library in Jasło:

The process of starting our Reading Families’ Club started in two ways. First of all, by encouraging our befriended readers to participate, inviting our friends’ families and the families of our own. We had begun with just a couple of families. Secondly, we invited some experts to get involved, so that they could share their experience and knowledge from their respective fields. Because the meetings were not only meant for the kids, but their whole families, we also invited a psychologist, a speech therapist, a professor and her students of the Child Caretaker faculty at the Medical Community College in Jasło. Expert guests are still quite frequent visitors of our meetings, recently we hosted a befriended dietician, and dr Wanda Matras-Mastalerz, who is the President of the Polish Bibliotherapy Association. Part of the meetings have been prepared by our librarians who came up with interesting subjects and activities – the participants read together, create artworks, play family games, go to the park, and even sew. We also host authors of kids’ literature, and so far we have invited Michał Rusinek, Zofia Stanecka, Renata Piątkowska, Joanna Olech and Izabella Klebańska among others.

When it comes to the age of the kids, when we were starting the club, we already had classes for the kids aged 6 – 12, so the Reading Families’ Club has been dedicated to the families with toddlers. The youngest participant was not even 2 years old on the day of the first meeting. We didn’t, however, set an upper age limit and we assumed that as long as the kid likes the Club, they can be part of it. Still, children aged 4 – 8 prevail. So, through the years the families in the Club change as their kids grow and ‘go further’ (which often means that they still visit the library, but choose to attend other activities), and new kids are born who accompany their parents and older siblings in a papoose. What’s crucial, the meetings are not only attended by moms, but dads, grandmas and grandpas like to come with the kids as well. It’s important for everyone to find something that they’re interested in. Creatively spent time with the family and new book inspirations are definitely part of these things.

Is it necessary to partner up with the Foundation?

The idea of reading itself is obviously not copyrighted, and many libraries still organize a lot of similar initiatives such as toddlers’ clubs, moms’ clubs and other family activities which are not related to “Rodzinne czytanie” in any way. It all depends on the very concept of a specific library. Joining the Reading Families’ Club, however, brings many benefits to the library – most of all it’s the support of a large expert knowledge base, ready activity plans or book recommendations. The Foundation also appreciates the clubs’ active participation in the community by sending the resources and publications, and organizing meetings with book authors for the most active clubs, which has allowed us to host Dorota Zawadzka and Łukasz Wierzbicki in Jasło.

Why is it worth it?

As I’ve already mentioned, you can read about the values and benefits of reading in the family perspective, if you consider the age of the child, on the pages of the “Rodzinne czytanie” program (available in Polish). But why is it worth it from the library perspective? Above all, because the Club creates a special kind of bond between our institution and the readers of various age groups, as the meetings gather children, parents and grandparents at the same time. We use this to inspire ourselves and stimulate our minds together, as reading families are usually very much aware of the value of reading, they’re well-read, and open to share their thoughts, reviews and ideas. We obtain loyal, active and courageous readers from a very young age, who as toddlers, are there up in front discussing literature with Michał Rusinek, perform in an orientation film for the “Reading to myself” campaign, and test our ideas for activities at the library. The kids who first attended a club meeting as two-three year-olds may eventually grow out of it, but they ‘grow inwards’ the youth Book Discussion Clubs and other initiatives carried out by the library. The reading families are present at the library and are the perfect spokespeople for the library outside of it. The influence of the Club has transferred to other of our activities as well, and it is increasingly so that the parents willingly attend the activities that had been previously attended exclusively by their kids.

What else?

Our Reading Families’ Club at the Public Municipal Library in Jasło has a tradition to celebrate the anniversary of the Club’s foundation every year. The first meeting of the Club took place during Nationwide Kids’ Reading Week, and we always have our own celebration at that time. We prepare a special subject for the activities, invite a special guest, and there’s a cake, but it doesn’t always have candles, as it happened that a few of our collected candle blowing attempts ended up in tears. And there are birthday gifts, none other than books. We want to use this occasion to appreciate the members of our Club not only because they are active readers, but because they are the very own families of our library.

Useful links:

Website for the “Rodzinne czytanie” program

Webpage for the “Reading Families' Club” in Jasło

Dorota Woźnica

Director of the Municipal Public Library in Jasło

The “12 thematic months with labib.pl” project is carried out by the Information Society Development Foundation (FRSI) and LABiB Association