Being asked to open a new library gives you many reasons to celebrate. And seeing the excitement of the faces of the children at the Manor School, Abingdon, as the new library was unveiled, was just one of them.
The library has had a complete refit and is now a beautiful space with books easier to find, cosy nooks to sit and read, a rug for sharing stories and a wonderful mural that celebrates some of the best characters in children's fiction. If there is a space that will inspire children to pick up a book, a wonderful library like this is it.
But snipping that ribbon wasn't the whole story.
Mark and I were asked to judge the short stories written as part of a national competition in which children at the school were challenged to imagine a world one thousands years into the future.
Reading those stories was terrifically inspiring for us. The imagination and engaging descriptive writing made it incredibly difficult to choose those to get prizes.
But as well as reading all those wonderful entries, we were able to give children a view of what it's like as a writer working in the book trade and how publishers get their books into readers' hands. We had to answer plenty of eager questions!
A great day of celebrating the many wonders of stories. Thanks to Manor Prep