Narrogin primary school students gather for National Simultaneous Storytime at town hall

Local primary school students gathered at the Narrogin Town Hall last week to hear a special narration of a children’s book for National Simultaneous Storytime. The Australian Library and Information Association organises the National Simultaneous Storytime event where a picture book by an Australian author and illustrator is read at the time time in libraries, schools, family homes and childcare centres across the country. Now in its 22nd year, the event aims to promote a love for reading and literacy. The Narrogin Library hosted the local event at the town hall on Wednesday last week, which was attended by more than 100 students from the five local primary schools. This year’s book was ‘My Family Tree’ by Josh Pyke and Ronojoy Ghosh, which tells a heartfelt story of family and community. St Mathews Primary School principal Mark Tenney said the event was an enriching experience for the students. “We took our pre-primary class and did a few arts and craft activities and listened to the story at 11am,” he said. “It was a lovely little story and it was a really enriching experience for the kids. “We even got some books to take back to school.” Native plant expert Peter Denton gave a talk on growing trees, with the students decorating their own compostable pot and planting a seed. Nellie the Numbat from Paint Narrogin REaD led the students in a song and dance activity. Narrogin Town Hall was one of more than 59,000 locations where more than two million students listened to a narration of the book last week.