Great website for swapping books – http://www.bookcrossing.com/ – you ‘tag’ your book with a code, leave it in a public place (e.g. Youth Hostel, cafe) and then the person who picks it up and reads it can log their comments against the code, the book might travel the world and you can meet it’s readers!
Core values August 19, 2007
Many moons ago when I worked in a proper office, for someone else, who sent me on fancy training courses and everything, I did a few management courses. One of them was about how everything you do should emanate from your core goals and that way you would be perfectly content. I don’t remember what it had to do with managing but it did result in a few people jacking it in and taking off with surf boards around the world! One thing I did think early on in parenting was that never was this truer than with parenting…
So here are some of my core goals (note my next post will be about challenges so please don’t assume I’m some smug saint and all these work all the time!):
relevance / meaning – I have always felt, and this is just a personal thing, that the kids should understand what we do and why we do it – so what we choose to eat, where we live, what work we do (resulting in me leaving my job and starting child-related businesses that my kids not only understand but gain a lot from – see entries on Tatty Bumpkin and Barefoot Books) etc. We try to do this in an undogmatic, way, I don’t want them to think that’s the only way to do things…
anything’s possible – I’ve long been a believer of if there’s something you want to do / is needed and no one is doing it then just do it! It does mean I never get to veg and watch TV but is incredibly empowering. I was very lucky that my parents gave me a sense of anything being possible and that there were no limitations on what I could do, that I was utterly capable of anything (I did entertain a brief spell of fancying myself as a super-hero and jumping off the top of a tall fridge freezer dressed in my dad’s parachute boots and hat but otherwise entirely naked – but generally I think it was a good thing). All around us there is evidence of people getting him off their backsides and doing great stuff and there are loads of groups coming up with amazingly creative answers to (often multiple) problems.
sustainability – having long been a pursuer of all things environmental, it feels a bit like a (sometimes slightly annoying!) coming of age now that sustainability, carbon footprints etc are the words du jour. The kids are master composters and love being outside. They haven’t yet (thank goodness) started lecturing me about my car use (as my neighbour’s daughter does!) but they are pretty aware of the environment. The thing I think anyone new to all things green needs to realise is that it is a journey with no specific destination, that is to say that it’ll never be finished: I thought I was doing pretty well (we eat almost all organic, mostly wholegrain food from a food co-op, use cloth nappies, no chemicals in the home etc) but I keep finding new things (like the Mooncup, if you don’t use one, try one, they’re suprisingly good) and am still dealing with old demons like my tendency to use the car when I could probably avoid it.
Storytelling clothes July 29, 2007
I wanted to share with you my find! I’m doing some storytelling at Babington House, a swanky hotel in Somerset which is very family friendly and wanted a cool outfit. I was going to sew something but since the days, as a child, when I tacked my clothes together and they fell off rather promptly, my sewing has won no prizes. So I found this top, a story of its own!
Ten Tips on Reading with your Child June 13, 2007
Learning to read is the cornerstone of every child’s education. By reading aloud and teaching your child in a way that is a pleasure for both of you, you will be sharing one of life’s most valuable gifts and open all kinds of doors for the future. Here are some tips on making the most of reading with your child:
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Choose a time and a place where you can be quiet and give your child lots of attention. Make the occasion a special one.
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Turn off any distractions such as televisions, music CDs (unless they go with the story!), radios etc.
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When you are reading aloud, show that you are enjoying yourself.
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Involve your child. Let yourself be interrupted with questions; talk about what you think of the story and the pictures.
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When your child has started learning to read, follow the text and help your child point to the words as you go along.
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Establish a routine. Try to devote some time every day to reading.
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Take your child to your local library and involve him or her in choosing books.
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Notice what kinds of stories your child enjoys and look out for ones with similar themes.
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When you are reading aloud, praise your child for listening well and sitting still.
- When your child is learning to read for you, give praise and encouragement too, but be sure gently to correct your child when he or she makes mistakes.
- Help build your child’s vocabulary and memory skills by supplementing reading sessions with audio books on car journeys and after meals or at bedtime. Audio books are especially helpful in building memory skills and supporting the learning of dyslexic and autistic children.
Sharing your child’s journey into reading can be one of the most rewarding experiences of parenthood. You owe it to your child, and to yourself, to make it a priority in your daily life.
PaulaBrown@mybarefootbooks.com
www.mybarefootbooks.com/PaulaBrown
father and son reading group May 29, 2007
I’m thinking of starting a group for ‘dads and lads’ at my son’s school-to-be as I have read a lot about how this can help boys with literacy. If anyone has any experience of this or ideas please let me know!
Barefoot jolly in France May 27, 2007
I’ve just come back from a brilliant long weekend in Gascony in France, having won a trip there with my Barefoot Books work. It was 5 days of grown up talk, no nappies, lots of ideas thrown about about books, life, parenting and a lot of wine and dancing!
We looked at some of the new titles for the autumn – Portside Pirates with a brilliant song for seal-lovers, an amazingly moving book called Mother Bridge of Love which is a beautifully illustrated book on (Chinese) adoption and One City, Two Brothers which is a folk tale set in Jerasulem which comes from both the Jewish and Muslim tradtions and is all about sharing… (among other new titles). It just got me going all over again and amazed at the sturdiness of the titles, can’t wait to get my hands on them!
Running my Barefoot business May 27, 2007
I started ’stallholding’ with Barefoot Books in September 2005, around the time I started running Tatty Bumpkin sessions. I came to it to try to escape Thomas the Tank Engine which I have succeeded in doing! At first I was dabbling, then gave it all I had over Christmas and since then have worked at it steadily, giving myself time off when other pressures got too much!
Barefoot Books is all about beautiful timeless stories which help parents and children to enjoy ‘proper’ stories with important values, a chance to use their imaginations but that are also bright and fun! They are full of stories from other cultures and are such a brilliant alternative to some of the other rubbish you find for kids in the ‘information age’! The company is very grassroots-y and has pulled out of some of the US chains and gone for a more community-based approach because retail at that level is so soul-destroying.
I now have a team of over 40 people who sell the books, run storytelling sessions and all sorts of other ventures around the country. I love it and feel so proud when I’m by my stand at a fair in a multi-cultural area and have brilliant books with stories from many countries for people to look at and buy. Their philosophy of ‘not dumbing down’ to children by using bright and thoughtful artwork and strong age-old (and modern!) stories really appeals to me and my customers here in Bristol!
There’s more on this at www.mybarefootbooks.com/PaulaBrown
Local mum provides job opportunities to Bristol parents and wins holiday to the South of France May 25, 2007
Paula Brown is a local mum of 2 boys, Gabriel (4,see About) and Jude (22 months) who runs the Tatty Bumpkin sessions and also sells the brilliant Barefoot Books www.mybarefootbooks.com/PaulaBrown, children’s books with amazing artwork and stories from different cultures, to schools and families throughout Bristol.
Paula has recently won a trip to the South of France with Barefoot Books – a combined relaxation trip and conference – for her team development. Since having children she has been interested in the dilemma mums face regarding going back to work and wanted to find a better work/life balance. Starting the business only a year or so ago she has recruited over 30 people to her team, many of these mums in the Bristol area who want to combine motherhood with flexible work where they can still see their children and bring another skill to parenthood in the form of brilliant stories!
She also runs Tatty Bumpkin classes and helps to recruit mums to do this too www.paulabrown.tattybumpkin.com (featured in the Evening Post last year).
Footnotes
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Barefoot Books run a direct selling scheme. For information about joining visit www.mybarefootbooks.com/PaulaBrown or email barefoot-paula@blueyonder.co.uk.
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For more information call 0117 952 0070, email PaulaBrown@mybarefootbooks.com
fun children’s session and books donated to preschool working with disadvantaged kids May 25, 2007
Paula Brown, local mum, 2 boys, Gabriel (4, above right) and Jude (2 years) will run a children’s movement, music and yoga class to the Bristol Playhouse Playgroup & Family Centre in Eastville, a preschool supporting children from disadvantaged backgrounds and What’s On For Little Ones (whaston4littleones.co.uk) will donate some brilliant children’s books from round the world. Having a child at an excellent local preschool Paula realises how important good resources are at this age and being a volunteer at a preschool herself, Sam from WO4LO how hard preschool leaders work!
Tatty Bumpkin www.paulabrown.tattybumpkin.com is a children’s adventure session inspired by yoga which gets children and their carers moving, laughing, learning and having fun. The sessions fulfill all the criteria of the Foundation Stage, are multi-sensory, great for carers and children to have fun together and have recently won an award for best national children’s activity.
Bristol Playhouse Playgroup and Family Centre in Eastville was established in 1979 Bristol Children’s Playhouse is a daily “drop-in” Family Centre and pre-school nursery supporting children under 5 and their parent/carers living in isolation, poverty and disadvantage. Based in a culturally diverse community our work has a significant and well recognised impact on the integration of marginalised groups. Formerly funded by Surestart, funding is always an issue.
“Getting children interested in reading, storytelling, learning and movement at an early age is vital” says the pre-school. “We also love that the books are so reflective of the many cultures in our community and pre-school and that the Tatty Bumpkin sessions is so inclusive of all the children including those with special needs.”
We will be doing a Tatty Bumpkin session about life on the farm (a brilliant opportunity for photos) and presenting over £100 worth of Barefoot Books and activity resources.
Footnotes
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Paula has recently won a trip to the South of France to the Barefoot Books annual International summit for helping local mums start similar businesses
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What’s on For Little Ones runs a website on which children’s service providers can advertise cheaply and parents can easily find information about what activities are on offer for their children. They ran the awards that Tatty Bumpkin won and will also be providing the free books to the preschool
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Tatty Bumpkin sells an educational resource kit for teachers to use in their classrooms – visit www.tattybumpkinineducation.com/.
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For more information call 0117 952 0070, email paulabrown.tattybumpkin.com
The Interview: Tessa Strickland, co-founder of Barefoot Books May 25, 2007
Name – Tessa StricklandLocation – Rural Somerset
Family – Francis (19), Rollo (17) Zoe (15).
What inspired you to set up Barefoot Books?
I think there were three sources: first, my memories of being transported by stories as a child and an awareness as I moved into parenting of the ways in which I was half-consciously continuing to use them as a source of nourishment; secondly, my awareness of the central place of story in therapeutic circles and the relevance of this to sane parenting; thirdly, my children and my desire to get away from a corporate lifestyle and run a business in a way which included them.
What is your background?
I was brought up in the wilds of Yorkshire, in a large and semi-dysfunctional Catholic family. From as long as I can remember, I have loved to travel and explore other cultures and their languages so I have always looked ‘over the fence’ at other traditions, first through books, later by putting a pack on my back and heading for the hills. I was educated at Cambridge and worked as a teacher in Japan before entering a career in publishing, first with Penguin Books, then with Random House.
You set up Barefoot Books with Nancy Traversy – how did you meet Nancy? Do you think it makes life easier having a business partner?
A lot of people assume that Nancy and I were friends before Barefoot started. In fact, we met through the good offices of one of my brothers, Anthony, who is a long-term friend of Nancy’s husband. I was going round trying to work out how to start a business and Anthony said, ‘you need to talk to Nancy’, Nancy having just resigned from her position as MD of a design group in Covent Garden following the birth of her daughter. So we met and talked and liked each other and realized we had complementary talents and it went from there.
How did you find the first Author/Illustrator for your first book?
I was lucky enough to have the support of many authors with whom I was already working at Random House, so this was fairly straightforward.
Was it hard getting the first books published?
It is quite a culture shock going from a multinational to a start-up – no-one has heard of you. However, one of the wonderful aspects about the publishing world is that people tend to be very supportive and generous with their knowledge. You just have to keep asking questions, and questioning, and looking ahead, and sticking to your values at the same time.
Did you have a good support network around you when you were setting the business up – in terms of childcare?
No! I resigned from Random House, left London, left my husband and started Barefoot all in the same year, with three children under five. I found a dilapidated farmhouse north of Bath, packed up everything and drove west. The house was beautiful but isolated, with no central heating, crows in the chimney and weeds in every direction. It was all very character-forming for all of us! I got help in the form of a friend with whom I had trained as a yoga teacher – he helped out with the kids in return for free accommodation in the freezing farmhouse, and has remained a close family friend ever since.
How does running the business fit round your family now?
It’s much easier now that the children are older and now that the office is no longer in my home. We had a watershed year in 2001 – until then, Nancy had run all the management, sales and marketing functions of the business from her home in north London , while I looked after product development, foreign rights and contractual issues from my home. We opened an office in the US in 1998 and three years later Nancy, who is Canadian and married to an American citizen, said she wanted to move to the US because it was next-to-impossible to manage the North American business from a distance. At this juncture, there were too many people to fit into my farmhouse and anyway, I was ready to move on from renting and to move into offices. We now run the business from offices in Bath, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What research did you do, to know the business would work?
I think it is impossible to tell if a business will work – you just have to believe in what you are doing and believe that it will resonate to other people too and ensure that your product is as good as you can make it and that you look after your relationships with everyone – from authors and artists to retailers and educators and of course, the people you work with.
Financially, how did you set up Barefoot Books – did you have any grants/funding?
We applied for the Business Expansion Scheme and met the criteria, which made it a lot easier, as investors could recover part of their investment on their next tax return and also enjoy tax-free dividends if the business survived for more than five years.
You offer the fantastic Stallholder opportunity for Mums to work selling Barefoot Books – was this always the aim of the business, or did this element grow organically?
In the early days, this wasn’t our aim. However, in 1998 we conducted quite an extensive survey among our mail order customers and one of the questions was, ‘would you like to sell Barefoot Books as an independent distributor’ and so many people ticked that box that we thought we’d better do something!
What has been the biggest hurdle you’ve faced in setting up the business?
I think for me it was about plucking up the courage to acknowledge what I didn’t know and believe that I could go out and find out enough to ‘join the dots’ and get started.
What has been the best bit of PR/Marketing you’ve had?
The five-year-old daughter of one of our top Stallholders saying recently: ‘When I grow up I am going to be a Mummy and I am going to sell Barefoot Books’!
Before you set up your own business had you looked into finding a job with an employer?
I had been an employee for twelve years but I’d say one of the experiences that radically affected my perception of what I wanted to do with my life/how I wanted to use my abilities was becoming a mother. I was the provider, not the dependent, from the birth of my first son, and somehow that created a significant inner shift in me.
Do you think single parents face extra challenges when thinking about work?
Yes and no. I think a lot depends on your circumstances. If there is conflict in a marriage, it can be very suffocating. I know one of the reasons I left my husband was that he would have destroyed my emerging confidence. Having said that, whatever the differences between us, he has always been a committed father to the children and this has been immeasurably valuable. We remain good friends and I shall always be grateful to him for his ongoing dedication to the children.
If you hadn’t set up Barefoot Books do you think you would have returned to work? Had you had any ideas about what you might do?
I was in full-time work when I decided to start Barefoot – I looked at my life and realized I didn’t want to hand my children to someone else every morning, and get home when they were in bed. If I hadn’t started Barefoot, I would probably have done more writing and supported myself and my family that way.
What is the biggest benefit to your family of you being self-employed?
The flexibility it offers and the freedom – this is more psychological than practical, as there is always masses to do, but knowing that you can choose what books to develop, and with whom, is very liberating.
Any advice to lone parents who would like to set up their own business, but aren’t sure how they could manage to juggle running a business and looking after their children?
Go for it! You will almost certainly need help, and you will find it, and you will have a lot of fun and learn a lot along the way. You only live once, so why not make the most of all that talent you have tucked away inside you? And let your children know what you are doing – my children have been a huge support to me and continue to be so.
Find out more about the Barefoot Books Stallholder opportunity www.mybarefootbooks.com/PaulaBrown
