Children take over reading event at school summer camp

Jason was the warm-up act for the head-teacher’s bed-time story at an infant school summer camp at the weekend.

With the evening drawing to a close, the bonfire was lit inside the ring of hay-stacks, as children gathered for story-time.

Accompanied by a smaller group of cuddly animals than normal – just the snake, cat and elephant – Jason went first, in the expectation that his books would energise the children, rather than prepare them for bed – and that expectation came to fruition.

Rather than reading one of his books cover-to-cover, Jason picked the highlights of I Like To Put Food In My Welly and its follow-up, A Zoo In My Shoe, reading the crowd to know which rhymes would work best.

Having just dined on pizza from a local restaurant, the children laughed with horror at the idea of a pizza, covered with four types of fleas. There were more howls of laughter at such notions as swimming in a cup of tea, drinking an apple tree, sleeping on a slice of bread and wiping your feet on your cat.

These reactions came as no surprise, but Jason was somewhat taken aback when some of the children decided to start reading the book, as he turned the pages, before he had a chance to recite them.

A point came where he gave up trying to compete and just looked at the head teacher, congratulating her on the standard or reading in her school.

When it came to her turn to read, there were fewer interruptions – and a lot less laughter. She joked that the children were more scared of her than they were of Jason.

After the readings, the last thing before families retreated to their tents for the night was the raffle – featuring a signed copy of A Zoo In My Shoe among the prizes. Happily for Jason, that was won by an appropriately aged child – rather than one of the parents, hoping to pick up a John Lewis voucher or a bottle of wine.

“It’s always a lot of fun to have a lively crowd,” noted Jason. “But after an afternoon of pizza, ice-cream and camping games, these children were really hyped up and ready for some fun. I love that you really never know what to expect in these kind of situations; it keeps me on my toes. But it’s so rewarding, to hear them having so much fun, listening to and laughing at my silly rhymes.”