SAN ANTONIO – Friday mornings at Pearl have become a weekly tradition for families gathering outside The Twig Book Shop.
Every Friday during the school year, Miss Anastasia leads a 10:30 a.m. story time with books, songs and plenty of animated voices for babies, toddlers and young children.
This summer, she will host two reading sessions: one from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and another from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Miss Anastasia has been leading story time with The Twig Book Shop for 26 years.
“We started inside, but we’ve kind of grown out of the inside, so now we have it underneath this pretty awning,” she said.
KSAT’s Sarah Acosta and Sarah Spivey recently brought their children, Dotty and Everett, to see the crowd of families who show up for the weekly readings.
Miss Anastasia said reading out loud to children is one of the most important things parents and caregivers can do.
“It stimulates the brain, it has that connection between parent and child, it increases their vocabulary, it makes them feel safe,” she said. “If you read to your baby, then one day your baby will read to you.”
She said story time is also meant to be a screen-free space where families can slow down and connect.
“For little children, they just want a human face,” she said. “There’s just nothing that can compare with all the dimensions and all of the senses of a real person versus a flat screen.”
The free story time is open to anyone, and Miss Anastasia said toddlers are welcome — even the ones who like to wander.
“If they wander off, you just wander off with them,” she said. “Even if they got just a few minutes of it, it’s priceless.”