‘Runoraitti’, a joint project between two libraries and one educational institution, aims to encourage children to read and write poetry.

Children’s poetry has not traditionally
been particularly prominent in the
children’s section of libraries. On the
contrary, it has been difficult to find
poetry. The reader can nonetheless get
a lot out of children’s poetry. The melodic
and diverse language of children’s
poetry develops their language skills,
and children can get words from
poems, for example, to express their
own feelings. These reasons, combined
with Library Director Mervi Heikkilä’s
personal interest in children’s poetry as
an art form, inspired the Nurmo municipal
library, Lapua’s city library and
Seinäjoki University of Applied
Sciences to start the joint project, Runoraitti.

Runoraitti began in 2006 with a day seminar
on children’s poetry, in which
both teachers and library staff participated.
Additionally, the project included
many different presentations;
authors of children’s poetry told school
children about their writing, professional
actors performed poetry presentations,
and pre-schoolers listened to
songs composed from their favourite
children’s poems.

Library staff in both municipalities
participating in the project put together
poetry bags for children of different
ages. The bags contained poetry
notebooks for students, a comprehensive
anthology of Finnish poems, nursery
rhymes and a folder with poetryrelated
assignments. Classes or day-care
groups can borrow these bags from the
library. In Lapua, the bags were passed
around from one school to another via
the library bus. The poetry-related
assignments got the children excited
about reading poems and writing their
own. The children’s poems have been
on display at both Nurmo and Lapua
libraries and on the project’s website.
Two students, Pia Rask and Elisa Vikström,
from Seinäjoki University of
Applied Sciences, participated in the
project preparing poetry reviews for
elementary school classes. The children
responded enthusiastically to the poetry
reviews and after class were given a
nursery rhyme card as a souvenir made
by the students.

At both libraries, Lapua and Nurmo,
loans of children’s poetry increased
with the project. “I noticed that during
the Runoraitti project, when the poetry
shelves were moved to a more central
place in the library, poetry books were
frequently borrowed. Now that they
have been moved back to their previous
place, it is more difficult to notice
if they are being borrowed. I think
they are being borrowed a little less frequently,”
librarian Liisa Pohjanen from
Lapua city library says thoughtfully.

Pohjanen feels the project’s most important
contribution was that knowledge
of children’s poetry in Lapua
increased on a broad scale among daycare
staff, teachers and children. She
says, “I think that Runoraitti left a
spark for children’s poetry in many.
Finland has many diverse and gifted
poets and children’s poetry is nice to
read and it enriches teaching.”

The Runoraitti project peaked in May,
2007 with the publication of its own
website. The website has a collection
of interviews with Finnish poets of
children’s poetry, background information
about children’s poetry, reading
tips for poems and the poetry assignments
from the poetry bags. The Runoraitti
website was designed in a clear
and easy way for children to use. However,
the website also includes material
for adults to use, especially professional
teachers. This sort of website, which
focuses only on children’s poetry and
presents authors of children’s poetry,
has never existed before in the Finnish
language. Judging by the number of
visitors, the website has been enthusiastically
received. In the future there
will be the challenge of developing the
website and constantly updating author
information.

Director Mervi Hekkilä of Nurmo’s
municipal library, together with Marko
Patteri, office secretary for the Lapua
city library, director Marita Hakala and
librarian Liisa Pohjanen, has designed
the content of the website. Marko Patteri
is responsible for transferring it to
the Internet. Illustrations were done by
artist Ritva Lindberg. The project obtained
funding from Finland’s Ministry
of Education.

Link: www.runoraitti.fi

Mervi Heikkilä
Library Director
Nurmo Municipal Library

mervi.heikkila@nurmo.fi

Translated by Turun Täyskäännös