A GROUP of children have met characters from an educational book that aims to make learning fun.

Youngsters gathered at Chester-le-Street library this week to hear stories from Jeanette Duffy and Sonia McDonnell who are the authors of Shayped Island - The Rescue.

The characters include Cilla Circle, Suzy Star, Poppy Pyramid and Rory Rectangle.

Mrs Duffy, of Ouston, near Chester-le-Street, who is one of a team of five belonging to the company StoryChest, said: "We tell stories and have songs and poems relating to the characters.

"The aim is to entertain children - for them to have fun while learning."

"We created the characters based on two-dimensional and 3-D geometric shapes."

Shapes feature in the National Curriculum for maths and, in particular, the national numeracy strategy for shape and space for foundation and key stage one pupils.