Abbey Junior School explore our rare book collections
Written by Fiona Melhuish, UMASCS Librarian
A fortnight ago, we were delighted to welcome three groups of UII (Year 5) girls from the Abbey Junior School with their teachers and the School Librarian, to view items from our Childrenâs Collection, the Great Exhibition Collection and the Ladybird Books archive.
We started off each session by exploring what a ârare bookâ is, and the groups were introduced to some of the special features of rare books, including marks of ownership such as bookplates and special bindings, which make them fascinating historical objects beyond their textual content.
As the girls had been learning about the Victorians at school, the Victorian era formed the main theme of the sessions, and the groups had the chance to see some of the highlights from the Great Exhibition Collection including a luxury edition of the exhibition catalogue with a lavish decorative binding, and a souvenir diorama or âpeepshowâ from the Exhibition, which opened out to reveal a view down through the Crystal Palace.
The groups also had the opportunity to see some examples of Victorian childrenâs periodicals such as The Girlâs Own Paper, illustrated childrenâs books by Kate Greenaway and a miniature childrenâs library from 1803. Also on display for the groups were some examples of original artwork for the Ladybird book of Charles Dickens, and other highlights from the Childrenâs Collection and related collections, including some of the âOrlando the Marmalade Catâ books, a first edition of the Wizard of Oz story and a twentieth-century pop-up Victorian farmhouse book.
After some handling guidance and with supervision, the girls were able to handle the items on display. The girls really enjoyed being able to handle the books for themselves, to peep through the hole of the diorama and to look at the tiny books which made up the Victorian childâs small wooden box library.
The girls wrote up their impressions of the visit at school â here are some of their comments:
âThe trip was fascinating and really gave us a better feeling of what children read in the Victorian timesâ: Erin
âI really enjoyed it ⊠My favourite book ⊠was the one that you stretched out and looked through the hole and it felt like you were walking through the Great Exhibitionâ: Ava
âIt was really interesting ⊠My favourite object was a mini bookcase that was the size of a childâs hand. It was full of tiny books on arithmetic, history, geography and prayers âŠâ: Isabella
We are hoping to run these sessions with the Abbey Junior School again next year, and welcome enquiries from other teachers who would be interested in organising similar sessions for their school groups to explore some of the treasures of Special Collections!