Seven Stories: The Centre for the Children’s Book

My family and I visited Seven Stories last Saturday and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My eldest son who is 4 loves Juliia Donaldson books so the fact that one floor was devoted to her was a big bonus. This floor included a massive Gruffalo figure, a small house a child could walk into full of stuffed animals depicting the ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’ book and an area to get dressed up as your favourite character and play out one of the books.
The staff were extremely friendly and helpful and the food in the café was fantastic (too good for kids) ;) a fantastic book shop too with lots of unique books and some old favourites.
Adult entry £6.50
Child entry £5.50 (4+) under 4 free
Great value for a Half day experience

We really looked forward to visiting Seven Stories as we are all avid readers BUT so disappointing.
The bookshop is excellent although not the cheapest around.
The café is too poncy as my * yr old put it — learnt from his dad I think, no normal kids food — and certainly not cheap, seems to cater to the green organic middle classes rather than the majority.
The exhibitions weren’t engaging enough for young minds who don’t get the intricacies of illustration or ths history of childrens storytelling.
One floor was closed for a workshop and there just wasnt enough to keep us busy until it was finished to visit that floor so it was six stories for us.
A good place to take young kids to introduce them to different genres and styles of books or older kids who would appreciate the history and work that goes into producing a book but my son was extremely unimpressed by everthing except the bookshop — until mums money ran out!

Seven Stories is the National Centre for Childrens Books. The building has seven stories to reflect the claim that there are only seven stories in all the world. Downstairs is mostly devoted to an excellent childrens book shop. You pay to see the rest. Downstairs there is the engine room with craft activities for kids and a post office to stimulate imaginative play. Then upstairs to the exhibitions. At the moment the main focus is naughty heroes, and horrid henry features heavily. The exhibitions tend to be of the look at this pretty artwork type and not as interactive as they could be. Upstairs is a studio space with storytelling chairs, a stage and dressing up clothes.
A special mention for the hungry caterpillar café which overlooks the canel at the back and is a great place to take kids to eat. This is a cut above the eating to be found generally at this type of place.
Seven stories runs a regular programme of events, such as storytelling, which are excellent. Check the website as sometimes you need to book for this. I would reccomend saving a visit for these days.