Limerick Competition Winner

WENVOE COMMUNITY LIBRARY

Tel: 02920 594176 – during opening hours or wenvoelibrary@outlook.com

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Winner of the Limerick Competition

This year’s competition attracted the most entries to date. Thank you to Alina for judging them all. Her description of the winning entry was ‘It’s got the correct number of syllables for each line; it’s witty, pithy and gives us a slightly naughty picture of what was, perhaps, going on behind the heavy brocade curtains of some of the more sedate Wenvoe houses. Especially as I feel that Thoreau could drive some of us to Bordeaux, or Chateau Neuf du Pape, or even Pinot Grigio’.

Congratulations to Gareth Stone who wins a bottle of Prosecco.

There was once a village in lockdown

Held online events to ease meltdown

Reading books by Thoreau

Drinking wine from Bordeaux

Then dancing to music from Motown.


We Want Babies, Children and Young People to Love Wenvoe Library

Our children-friendly library is bursting with brilliant books and captivating stories to spark and inspire your imagination. The library has a variety of crafts, jigsaws, Duplo, Lego, games and great reads for all ages. Look out for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge at https://readingagency.org. uk

When we have our new library (and a coffee area for mums and dads), we want to expand our services such as Baby Rhyme Time, storytelling for the under-5s, workshops and much more. We are working towards an exciting programme of activities. There’s already always something to do in the library and all you have to do is come along. Everyone is eligible for membership from the day they are born.

We would welcome your suggestions for future children’s activities.

Volunteer contribution

Alina Trigger recounts how the earliest prose stories of the literature of Britain became widely influential and remain to be actively read many centuries since they were written.


Literary Allsorts.

Whether read to, or reading by ourselves, we as young readers came across four small words that

invited us into a world of magic, mystery and adventure: Once upon a time…the quintessential ‘opener’ to a story.

Opening lines of a story or a novel can prove crucial. Many authors were, and still are, known to have spent an extraordinary amount of time giving careful thought on how their narratives should begin. Some suffer writer’s block until they have composed a suitable opening.

As the initial invitation into the world of a writer’s creation, they set the tone, be it ironic, witty, sinister, or a social comment. From Pride and Prejudice to Harry Potter ‘openers’ often become the most iconic passages in a book.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in need of a wife. The witty and rather caustic comment indicates how Jane Austen will deal with the issues of manners, education and marriage among the landed gentry in early 19th century England. The reader is about to be treated to an elegant comedy of manners.

J.K. Rowling’s introduction to a series about a boy wizard in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is ironic and smug. Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. She is telling her readers that ‘normal’ is boring. And how right she is.

George Orwell creates the ominous and unsettling atmosphere of a dystopian society with a seemingly simple opening sentence. It was a bright cold day in April – so far so good – and the clocks were striking thirteen. Something is wrong. The reader is hooked.

Marley was dead: to begin with. Immediately, Dickens hints that perhaps Marley is not totally dead and that there is more to Marley’s death than at first appears. And a wonderful story full of social comment and redemption unfolds.

No matter how great a novel might be, if the opening lines fail to capture the reader’s imagination, there is the possibility that the book may never be read. Opening sentences not only raise questions, introduce themes and the overall tone of the novel, but intrigue their potential reader.

What about famous last words? Ah, those will be for next time.