Give a kid a cardboard box, and they’ll rocket into space, drive a double decker bus, and become World Staircase Soapbox champion (when you’re not looking).
But give a kid two sprawling floors of enchanted woodland, glittering rivers, shark-infested waters and a story factory in the clouds… and it might just blow their little mind.
Discover Children’s Story Centre is essentially an enormous imaginarium, where kids up to the age of about 11 can race around different sets, letting their imaginations run wild. There are flying houses and puppet castles to explore; hidden caves to wriggle through; and dozens of cleverly designed story-telling activities that can get the ball rolling if they’ve got fewer ideas than a reality show commissioner.
Sorcha Bridge
Take a seat on the beach with a good book from the library, or visit the story sorting office to help the centre’s resident horn-faced alien, Hootah, to bring order to literary chaos. Younger ones will have inordinate amounts of fun in the tree hollow where lights and sounds react to their footsteps. And outside is the Story Garden, recently refurbed after the pandemic and now sporting a wooden taxi alongside Studio Ghibli-esque treehouses with ladders and slides.
Aside from all the fun they’ll have blowing off their own steam, kids can also sit down for storytelling, singing, and interactive family sessions where you’ll help to build the story. There’s an evolving exhibition area, which brings to life a different book with life-sized props, illustrations and activities. They even run occasional sleepovers packed with scavenger hunts, crafts, hot chocolate, and stories by the ‘fireside’ (and most importantly, you get a night off from bedtime story duty).
The Discover Children’s Story Centre also has a shop and a café tacked on, neither of which are hideously overpriced (and you can bring your own picnic).
It’s an adult’s dream place, too.
NOTE: Discover Children’s Story Centre is open daily, 10am-5pm. Entry costs £10pp (£5 for 1 year-olds, babies go free). You can find out more, and book, HERE.
Discover Children’s Story Centre | 383-387 High Street, Stratford, London E15 4QZ
Now you just need to sort the rest of the summer holidays. Luckily, there are 67 fun things to do with kids in London right here…