Tales on Moon Lane - inside the magical world of Ramsgate’s new children’s bookshop

ramsgate recorder Tales on Moon Lane

Writer Georgie Hurst Photographer Storme Sabine

Addington Street’s latest addition is a book shop aspiring to show children the enchantment of reading

Entering Moon Lane Books is like returning to the magical realm of childhood. Walls are lined with hundreds of brightly coloured and inviting books, there’s a model train doing laps of the shop above your head, and a carousel horse mid-leap in the window display.

Speaking to Tamara Macfarlane, the shop’s owner, this was its intended effect. “I want reading for children to be associated with toys, sweets and all things that are pleasurable in life,” she says.

The store’s flagship, Tales on Moon Lane in Herne Hill, opened sixteen years ago, when Tamara became frustrated with teaching literacy in schools: “It felt almost like bullying rather than inspiring children to read.” Her solution was to make reading something that happened beyond the classroom, creating an enchanting environment that “children would drag their parents into, rather than the other way around”. While on holiday in Broadstairs, she “fell in love with Ramsgate”, drawn in by its wealth of independent, creative businesses, and a desire to become one of them.

Each of the three Moon Lane shops, two in London, host vibrant storytelling sessions for free, where local authors will entertain children with their tales. These sessions are part of Tamara’s community interest company, which seeks to break barriers to children’s literacy. As one of the main barriers is not having been read to from a young age, Tamara has invited all of the local primary schools in for storytelling, hopeful that “lively and engaging author events will help a child who might be a nonreader to get into a book”.

Tamara’s previous community work has been based in the London Borough of Lewisham, where 73% of the school age population is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Children’s books are proportionally unrepresentative of these diverse communities, she says, which is another barrier to reading since it can reinforce stereotypes and portrays a narrow range of experiences. There are also class and socio-economic barriers to reading, Tamara adds, which are exacerbated by a lack of books including stories with singleparent families, and people living in flats or growing up on estates. If children “don’t see themselves reflected in the books, it can limit engagement”, Tamara says, “so what we do is create as many opportunities as we can for authors from under-represented groups to come into schools and promote reading.”

Tamara’s plans for Ramsgate include a children’s literature festival in the shop for February half-term, as well as a week-long festival in the summer that will take place across the town and in schools. The festivals will host a diverse range of authors so that children see people from varied backgrounds celebrating reading and literacy. Tamara hopes that this, along with her pop-up bookshop enterprise events in secondary schools, will “reinforce that the industry is open for everyone to go into”.

Tamara is also the author of numerous children’s books, including her series Amazing Esme and The Uncracked Code, which came out of wanting to remedy the gender disparity in children’s literature and create strong female role models.

She stresses the importance of many people creating change on a local level, eventually influencing social change: “It may not be in the way you think it’s going to happen, or as direct as you think it should be, but just holding the line of conversation is really important to do.”

Moon Lane Ramsgate hosts free storytelling sessions every Friday morning at 10am.

Moon Lane Books & Toys Half-Term Children’s Festival — Free Drop-in SHANE ROBINSON Come and enjoy a magical time with a local magician and children’s author who will discuss his latest book and perform spellbinding magic tricks from his book. He will teach one or two of them as well! 18 February, 11am - 12pm TAMARA MACFARLANE Tamara is the much-loved children’s author of the Amazing Esme series. Come and join her to help make up rules for a bad-mannered tea party, create your dream circus and hear stories of acrobatic donkeys, sweetshop caravans and high sea adventures with a mini hippo. 18 February, 2 - 3pm TAMARA MACFARLANE Secret world of... Mermaids and Unicorns author Tamara Macfarlane will be helping you to create your own unicorn, design an underwater mermaid grotto and start your very own Secret World of... adventure story. 19 February, 11am - 12pm ANN SCOTT AND PATRICK GEORGE What can we do to help save the planet? Join this badgemaking workshop for budding eco-warriors. Meet author, Ann Scott, and illustrator, Patrick George, to read Planet Rescue. Suitable for ages 4-8 years. Patrick George will be signing copies of the book at the end of the event. 19 February, 2 - 3pm MARGO IN MARGATE Join local artist Margo in Margate, in her “Making new little faces: making collages using recycled materials” session. Children can make cards to take away using a range of materials to make collages. Margo will also support and inspire the children to assemble and cut out shapes, and add drawings to create images. 20 February, 11am - 12pm INKY WILLIS Join author-illustrator Inky Willis to discover how to transform your doodles into story ideas. Inky’s Scribble Witch series is about a paper witch called Notes who lives in a pen pot. Inky will walk you through the process of getting your character designs down on paper, then interrogating them to develop original story ideas. This session is perfect for 7+ year olds with an interest in storytelling. 20 February, 2pm - 3pm OLALA CHILDRENSWEAR OLALA’s “Make a cloth monster” session gives children a chance both to get experience at making things from fabric, and to make use of “waste materials” to create something fun. The children’s clothing designers have geared this at 0-4 year olds (the age-range for their brand), but older children are welcome. Participants are invited to bring along any scraps of fabric or old clothes that are past mending, but this is optional as plenty of materials will be provided. 21 February, 11am - 12pm MARTYN HARVEY Martyn Harvey is a local author and illustrator, a first-time selfpublisher of children’s books and a Ramsgate resident of 20 plus years. Having graduated in music and possessing a master’s degree in 20th-century composition, Martyn now has two grown-up daughters (for whom his stories were originally written) and was a keen cyclist - until he fell off and broke his wrist! Come enjoy readings from his book with a chance for questions and a book signing. 21 February, 2 - 3pm

Tamara Recommends: Moon Lane Favourites —

Ages 7-9 Ages 5-8

Ages 8-12