ROSEWOOD’S Jenny Stubbs has spent a lifetime immersed within the pages of books that take her on curious and fascinating adventures.
As a child she loved nothing more than being swept away by a good tale, it’s a love she got from her mum, she said.
“My love for literature came from my mother, she came from a fairly academic family,” she said.
“My grandfather was the head teacher at Rosewood primary school and that’s how mum came to live in Rosewood.
“My father was a coal miner so it was a working class meets middle class type thing, but being from a very well educated family, we always had books in our house,” she said.
“Mum had a bookshelf beside her bed that was filled with the classics, not that I ever read them all mind you.
“They were there and she read them every night to us in bed.”
Her mum had polio and was unable to walk.
“I was born after she had polio and so my sister and I were raised very close to her,” she said.
“At night mum would be reading and I’d be lying on her arm looking up at those pages.
“I could read some of them and I don’t recall ever being taught to read, I just felt like I could always read.
“Although I couldn’t read as fast as her, I’d try to read some of the words before she turned the page.
“I had that modelling of a mother who reads, a mother who reads aloud and who is a great storyteller.”
Her mother also made stories up or retold tales from her childhood and the adventures she’d been on.
Ms Stubbs attended Rosewood Primary School which didn’t have its own library at the time, so she’d borrow books from the Country Extension Service, riding her bicycle to the railway station to pick up parcels of books wrapped in brown paper and tied up with strings.
She’d save the paper and string then rewrap and send them back a month later.
Her early years laid the foundation for a life spent dedicated to literature and storytelling.
Fuelled by her own childhood memories, she started the StoryArts Festival Ipswich in 1995, which is free to all children.
She worked as a teacher-librarian for more than 40 years and has been director and coordinator of many literacy organisations and charities.
Ms Stubbs was the Ipswich City Council Cultural Australia Day Award winner for 2024.
She was nominated for her role as director of the StoryArts Festival.
“There is something inspiring about meeting the author or illustrator of a book you already love but children often have little choice in who they get to meet,” she said.
“It is up to the teachers, librarians, festival directors, parents and care givers to provide opportunities for them to meet these creators, who can really inspire young people to read, borrow, buy books and develop a lifelong passion for reading.”
