Khaliun lives with her two children and husband. She got introduced to books when she was seven years old as she would be left in the provincial library during her mother’s workday.
She understands the joy that books can bring to someone’s life. She wanted her children to lovebooks, so she started buying books for them when they were one-year old. However, her children would simply tear the books instead.
She learnt about a community centre near her home, where “Storytime” events (Let’s Read) were being held every Saturday. Curious as she was, Khaliun started attending the events with her children.
Her children too enjoyed the events; she could clearly see that they had started reading and eventually learning through books. Her three-year old daughter learnt to wash her hands by attending Storytime events regularly at the Ger Innovation Hub, where they heard about the importance of washing hands and did small experiments on where they washed their hands and how their hands become clean. At home, her daughter started washing her hands regularly without her mother’s reminder.
Currently, Khaliun created a small library at home and the children read books every night. Her three-year-old daughter brings books with long texts and narrates her own imaginative stories even though she has not learnt to read yet. Khaliun witnessed her daughter’s cognitive abilities developing rapidly and her daughter becoming more self-expressive over time.
In Ulaanbaatar, the supply of books is not abundant, let alone finding age-appropriate content for reading. Khaliun was in search for a book that described the habit of brushing teeth to lead her children to do the routine voluntarily. However, she found seven different versions of the same story of “Three pigs” at her local bookshop instead. She travelled to the city centre in order to buy or borrow books for her children on the weekend. Storytime events give mothers like Khaliun a chance to access free library books and attend child development activities. Children now treasure books and spend their free time on creative thinking instead of phone screens.
Khaliun wishes that other parents also realise the importance of reading books for their children and develop their children’s abilities through books