I was at home this morning because, for the first time since I began my course, I had a morning without back-to-back lectures so I could focus on trying to catch up with my neglected personal study and coursework. What? I hear you cry. If you’re supposed to be doing coursework, how come you’ve got your sewing machine out? The answer is simple – story sacks.

For anyone illiterate in the ways of literacy (hee hee), it’s important to capture the imagination of children so getting a story book out and reading just doesn’t cut the mustard. I have been tasked with making a story sack (my own choice of story) for tomorrow and so I’ve just cut up an old sheet to make the sack. Health and safety note: you can’t make a story sack from plastic – you don’t want to suffocate anyone. So out comes my sewing machine and my thirst to regain my craftiness is sated, however briefly. NOTE TO SELF: when you've got a bit of spare cash shell out on a service for the sewing machine - it needs it badly!

My knowledge of children’s literature is limited. In my day we learned to read with Janet and John (fictional characters, not our good grown-up friends) and I quickly migrated to The Famous Five and Malcolm Saville, skipping past the children’s classics without a backward glance. Of course, there has also been a massive amount of fabulous children’s literature written while I’ve been guzzling books by the yard, but not children’s books – I have not even read Harry Potter (though it’s on my reading list now). I was just approaching adulthood when Michael Morpurgo’s first book was published – I’ve read two of his in the last couple of weeks and think they are amazing.

Anyway, I had to find a children’s book that was suitable for young children because obviously they grow out of the need for a sack and my new friend Maria was showing off books she’d bought, one of which was “The Velveteen Rabbit” and it jogged my memory of a happy time in my life and a connection to my pbase life, when the lovely Cheryl Hawkins brought the book to my attention by sending me a passage from it. I was transfixed – well, you already know of my rabbit fixation! So, this is what’s in my story sack:

1. The book!
2. My comfort bunny because his heart beats so he’s alive.
3. The now infamous dog (Delta in a doggy onesie)
4. A Tupperware pot of hay (essence of bunny)
5. A Tupperware pot of carrot sticks
6. A couple of pictures from the book with speech bubbles for children to complete
7. The first paragraph of the book written out for the children to write their own story
8. Some paper and coloured pencils to draw their own pictures
9. An activity sheet so parents have got some ideas for how to engage children with the book
10. A link to the youtube video of Meryl Streep reading it

They’re all bound up in a giant sack that makes me feel like father Christmas! Tomorrow I have to read the story and show my sack’s contents. I hope against hope that when I get to the bit about what makes someone real that I don’t end up a blubbing wreck again like last time. It’s weird how this is a bit like bearing my soul to the world…perhaps that’s a good thing but at the moment I just don’t know.