By Dongyun Kwon
A fun school holiday activity is set up in the three parks of Healesville.
Kid’s Hidden Book Hunt, which aims to improve the reading skills of the local kids while being away from technology during the school holidays, launched on Friday 19 January and will be continuing until Friday 2 February.
Mental Project secretary Gemma Seymour said they decided to run the event again after they got good feedback from the community for the first Kid’s Hidden Book Hunt last year.
“Everybody really enjoyed it and it was a great activity for the school holidays,” she said.
“Everybody in the community was supportive of it, especially the library and parents.
“We only got really good feedback and didn’t get any negative feedback.”
Books are hidden in the same places as last time, which are Queens Park, Coronation Park and Railway Park.
Kids are encouraged to find hidden books in those parks, add their first name onto the list inside the cover and re-hide the books in the same place after they read them.
Mental Project co-founder Steve Curry said kids are only able to find a maximum of two books at once for other kids.
“One morning [during the last event], we went there and there was a pile of books with the bag that kids found and they just grabbed two but didn’t re-hide them,” he said.
“So if kids happen to find more than two books, we would recommend them to put them back for other children to find.
“After they read the books and re-hide them, they can find another one again. They could also keep the books if they like them.”
The Mental Project is running this event in collaboration with Healesville Library and four primary schools in Healesville.
Mr Curry said the library and the schools donated books for the event.
“At the end of the year, they discard old books to get new books in and we’ve got those old books from them,” he said.
“We’ve got about 100 books for the event this time.”
The Mental Project is planning to organise more events this year.
There are two more secretaries, Cerian Jones and Rachel Lowe, who are working for the group with Mr Curry and Ms Seymour.
Ms Seymour said all events will definitely be community-based and try to involve as much of the community as possible.
“We’ll probably be doing the same book hunt event for next school holidays if it runs well this time,” she said.
Mr Curry said he plans to have a storytime for adults.
“Why should the children have all the fun? When was the last time any adult had a story read to them?” he said.
“So, we’d like to look out for and promote reading stories for adults.”
