Simultaneous Storytime
Originally published in The Nyngan Weekly
Schools, libraries, and early learning centres from across the country participated in National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS) last week.
At 11am on Wednesday, May 25, thousands of children across Australia joined together in reading Family Tree by Josh Pyke.
NSS is an annual event held by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). Each year a new Australian picture book is chosen to be read to mark the occasion. Now in its 22nd year, NSS promotes the value of reading and literacy, and supports Australian creatives at the same time.
Students from St Joseph's, Nyngan Public, and Nyngan Preschool made their way to town hall last Wednesday to watch this year's story be read. This year's special guest reader was 2022-23 Australian Children's Laureate Gabrielle Wang.
Ms Wang was announced as the 22-23 laureate in March this year and she has a passion for encouraging evervone to continue to their imaginations. After watching Ms Wang read the book on the big projector screen, Nyngan children participated in two craft activities, based on the book, led by Bogan Shire Library staff.
First students each decorated their own leaf, which has been used to create a beautiful tree in the Nyngan library, just like the one in the book.
Once their leaves were all finished, everyone had a chance to draw out a family portrait to take home with them.
More than two million participants were registered to participate in NSS this year in more than 59,000 locations across the globe. Acting CEO of ALIA, Nicole Barnes, said this was a 15 per cent increase from last years event.
"We have participants joining us this year from our biggest range of countries ever, across Australia and New Zealand to the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tunisia, UAE, UK, USA, Vanuatu, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Fiji, Hong King, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia and the Netherlands!”
Family Tree author Josh Pyke said the book has highlighted to him the value of family and community.