dulemba: Storyland

For this visit, we have to go back two years. My friend from the University of Glasgow, Shushu Li, worked at Storyland and arranged an interview with me when my novel, A Bird on Water Street, came out in Chinese for their Storyland Podcast series with over 20,000 listeners in China.

"We are the first and only platform in China through which readers can directly hear from book creators about their stories. So far we have interviewed over 70 book authors and illustrators about their passions for children’s books."

You can read more about that HERE. Shushu now teaches at Normal University in Shanghai, but she arranged for me to tour Storyland. Storyland has been around since 2014 and has two centers, in Xuhui District, Jingan District, Shanghai: Changshu Center and Hengshan Center. I think we went to the Changshu center location.
Although they've now interviewed over 70 authors/illustrators, few have been able to stop by in person, so they were thrilled and rolled out the red carpet for me! I thought I'd only get a quick 'hi' over lunch or some such, but instead, I got a grand tour! FABULOUS!
Here was our journey into Storyland...

Ella Chen (in pink in the photos) was the one who actually interviewed me two years ago, so she was my main tour guide along with the program manager, Vivien _____. (I need to confirm everyone's names!)
Along with their podcast and library, Storyland is an after school and enrichment program for early readers. This is immediately evident in the displays you see when you enter.

They also have wonderful nooks and crannies and activity areas everywhere.

Of course, I loved seeing all the books!

Because China makes a point of teaching children English alongside Chinese, the library had an English side and a Chinese side. Wish I could have read these wonderful books!

What I most loved about their books was how they categorized them - very much the same way we categorize books in our Margaret Wise Brown pop-up library, by theme rather than by author. This was validating to see another library operating this way - and why not? Most children won't be familiar with the names of creators, but they'll know the themes they want to read about!

When a child wants to check out a book, they can use the adorable kiosk.

Or they can use a provided eReader.

As I mentioned, only a few of their featured creators have actually physically been to Storyland, but a few who have left artwork behind. You might recognize one of these.