Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Australian music idol Guy Sebastian is king of the kids when it comes to setting new records for the Tamworth City Library.
The singer pushed the city library to its biggest ever day on record for his Sebastian Lives in a Hat and the Hungry Caterpillar storytime session in January.
The record now stands at 950 visitors for a single day – set on Thursday January 21 but library services manager Kay Delahunt says January 2010 actually saw the attendance record broken twice within a month.
The first record was set on Wednesday January 6 when 753 people visited – but two weeks later Sebastian’s storytime was another monster fairytale event.
Sebastian’s Sebastian book reading attracted 330 people to the session – with staff forced to borrow chairs from the gallery meeting rooms, staff and office spaces and anywhere else they could find them in the arts building in Peel Street.
“It was our biggest storytime ever but also our biggest day on record,” Ms Delahunt said.
“The crowd was a mix of locals and visitors for the Country Music Festival. Guy was a very competent reader and revitalized the hungry caterpillar story with some ad-lib additions including a suggestion that the hungry caterpillar audition for a place on the Biggest Loser reality TV show.
“He also read Sebastian Lives in a Hat and he got a kick out of reading about a wombat called Sebastian.”
“Guy also sang a couple of songs, including Elevator Love and Like It Like That and he expressed some amazement when the kids knew the words and sang along with him.”
The previous biggest Storytime days were in previous festivals with Felicity Urquhart, the Wolverines, and Jay Collie from Jonah’s Road, attracting young book fans.