Shannon residents sent out to ‘Look for a Book’

RINEANNA View resident Olivia Quinn has been running book treasure hunts in recent weeks, an initiative she calls Look For A Book Shannon.
Explaining how it has been working she says, “I ask people to sponsor the books and what I do then is put a little note on the inside saying who sponsored the book. Then I basically hide them around the place and leave clues on the Facebook page for kids to find them.”
There has been a great level of interest around the town over recent weeks. “It has been really popular. I’ve had enough sponsorship so far to run the event on three separate days. So far I’ve bought around 180 books, it’s really good and loads of people are interested. I’ve had a few business sponsors and I’ve had three or four members of the community sponsoring books as well.
“I can pick a day, last Wednesday for example, I took 55 books and hid them around the Town Centre, the Town Park and the playground. I took pictures of some of them so people could kind of guess where they were. Most of them have been found already and people have left pictures on the Facebook page.”
She was planning to have more books distributed on Thursday, August 28.
Olivia works for publisher Usborne, and she said that the idea came from there. “I’m an independent Usborne organiser. I’m in a team and we decided to do something for the summer. My team leader is doing the event in Kenmare, County Kerry. I think we’re the only ones doing it this side of the country, there might be one or two around Dublin. Most of the rest of the initiatives are happening in England.”
Olivia feels it is great to promote reading among youngsters. “I love reading, I have at least 500 books here myself. I love to see kids reading actual books, not stuck on a tablet, actual books. The minute I found out we could do this I was on board with it straight away.”
More information is available on the Look For A Book Shannon Facebook page.

by Owen Ryan