THE FIVE-YEAR-OLD FIGHTING TO SAVE HER LIBRARY

A pint-sized campaigner has vowed to save a Sunderland library under threat of closure.

Five-year-old Elsie Crone, from Red House, was devastated when she learned that her beloved Bunny Hill library could be shut as part of major funding cuts affecting Sunderland City Council.

A public consultation was launched in January to ask the public for their views on the future of library services in the city.

The St John Bosco RC Primary School pupil got straight on the case and produced a home-made banner calling for the library, in Hylton Lane, to be saved.

Elsie, who lives with mum Danielle, 31, a hairdresser, and dad Chris, a 35-year-old offshore inspector, now plans to present the banner to the library with her nanna.

Danielle said: “I’ve taken her to the library from being two and she absolutely loves it.

“She knows all the people who work there, and recently when I took her they told her that they might be closing.

“She was so upset. In her words she wants to ‘fix it’ – she wants to save the library.

“She can’t understand why it would be shutting. It’s always busy.

“Elsie just wants to go there and read books and pretend she is a schoolteacher.

“She also pretends she works there and helps stamping the books.

“She goes to craft weekends at Easter. We are worried we are not going to have that any more.

“She goes every fortnight on a Thursday and we spend about an hour-and-a-half there.

“I sometimes get some books and sit and read. We spend up to three hours a day there during the school holidays.”

Danielle believes the decline of libraries is bad news for new generations.

“It’s a waste and just quite sad for the younger generation,” she said.

“They just go home to play on iPads with no incentive to get into reading.

“I’m just as upset that all the local libraries could be shutting.

“Yes, a charity could take over, but I very much doubt that will happen.

“It would be such a shame to have that massive building just for a doctor’s surgery and gym.”

Danielle has a little brother or sister on the way for Elsie in July.

She added: “She says the baby won’t have anywhere to read either.”