Carey Fluker Hunt ‘brings books to life’ to help inspire and teach others

Carey is a well-known and highly respected educational writer and educator. She is brilliant at ‘bringing books to life’ and inventing ideas to use them creatively for teaching.

She says: “I am inspired by the imagination of authors, illustrators and publishers and I enjoy using my creative skills to add something which allows books to be actively shared through play and learning.” And she does this remarkably well.

Carey helped to found Seven Stories the National Centre for Books – www.sevenstories.org.uk/. There she ran hands-on exploratory book-based activities for nearly 20 years. She also trained teachers.

We spoke about her earlier life choices. After leaving school in Colchester, she was drawn to study science and maths at Oxford. But her final decision was rather different: Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge.

After graduating, she was offered a job in publishing at the same time as a place on the PGCE course at Goldsmiths College.

Going into publishing could have worked well for Carey as she has been a lover of books since being a toddler: “I love them as works of art, in the sense of being well designed and gorgeous objects to touch and look at – and smell!” (In her house, there are books everywhere, in every room).

Carey chose teaching, however, and worked for a while in a primary school in Sussex.

She moved to the North East in 1989 with her husband, who was training to become a GP. Carey taught at Gosforth Central Middle School before settling in Rothbury, in 1994.

Recently, Carey has been producing teaching resources to go along with projects by Wild in Art. Do you remember The Great North Snow dogs we saw all around Newcastle in the winter of 2016? Well, this year we will see Elmer the Elephant’s Great North Parade trumpeting throughout Tyne and Wear. Teachers across the North East will be making exciting lessons helped by Carey’s innovative resources – www.stoswaldsuk.org/elmer/learning-programme/

Carey’s wide-ranging knowledge and eclectic thinking, combined with a love of books, and everything to do with learning and teaching, has enabled her to finally go out on her own and launch a website.

If you work with young people, take a look – here you will find freely available ideas and resources which are participatory, creative, investigative and cross-curricular.

The website presents Carey’s personal choice of great children's books together with innovative ideas for activities for teachers.

Visit www.castofthousands.co.uk