You’re never too young to learn about the river

Even a small river like our wonderful Erme has such a diversity of life on, in and beside the water that there is no shortage of riverbank tales to tell to enquiring minds.

That’s why our Education Lead, Pat Hannam, holds her storytelling sessions in Ivybridge library. The latest one was over the Easter school holidays.

As a very experienced educator, Pat has a knack for encouraging children to not just listen to a story but to look at the illustrations and talk about the creatures and the environment that are featured: the fish, trees, animals, birds and insects.

A couple of Pat’s favourite books are the beautifully illustrated “Where the Forest Meets the Sea” by Jeannie Baker, about a father and son’s boat trip to a tropical rainforest. The superb illustrations are designed to encourage even quite young children to develop an interest in the environment, which makes for a worthwhile learning experience for them.

Another of Pat’s favourites is “I am Oliver the Otter” written by the people’s poet, Pam Ayres and, unsurprisingly, written in rhyme. Living a happy life in the river and along the riverbank, one day Oliver meets Ottilie and suddenly he has a new found friend. As their story unfolds, some fascinating facts about otters are revealed including how they under threat from pollution in their river. Young readers are encouraged to not only learn about otters but to also want to care for the habitat of these wonderfully enigmatic creatures.

Where the Forest Meets the Sea is currently being reprinted. But Oliver the Otter is available at the Ivybridge Bookshop.

Sometimes, at Pat’s storytelling sessions, the children ask questions about the Erme itself, such as how long is it? (answer 24 km). That prompted one of the WATER team to explain that the Erme is one of England’s fastest rivers, because of the height it starts at on Dartmoor and how, when it comes into Ivybridge, it is channelled into a ravine filled with granite Boulders making the water run faster as it drops one metre in height for every 50 metres it covers on the ground.

That fact was quickly absorbed by one young boy’s enquiring mind and apparently replayed to dad when they passed by the river on the next school run.