When Book Love for Tathra came to town on Saturday, avid reader Malakai first picked up Dragonology, running his fingers over the stickers and the lavishly illustrated pages. “Oh this was one of my favourites, Mum can we buy it?”
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Eight-year-old Malakai couldn’t believe it when he was told he didn’t need to buy the book, it was his to keep. In fact, any number of the several thousand books on display at the Tathra Public School Hall were his to keep.
Tathra residents affected by the 2018 bushfire were invited to re-stock their book shelves on Saturday.
Organiser and the brains behind putting together “Book Love for Tathra” Melissa Pouliot said the idea came to her through her passion for reading and a belief that “books make a house a home”. She said when she first floated the idea on social media last year, she didn’t expect the massive response it had.
“The idea kept growing and boxes and boxes of books kept arriving,” Ms Pouliot said.
Australian publishing houses, authors, local book stores and people all jumped on board. Pretty soon the Tathra Post office was inundated with books – and literally books by the truck load were arriving in Tathra.
“There has been an avalanche of books – it’s been heartwarming to see the humanity and generosity that Australians have,” Ms Pouliot said.
As she and her team of volunteers were setting up the makeshift book shop, they began by counting the books as they were putting them on display. They stopped counting half way after realising there were just way too many to count.
“I’d value the collection at over $100,000. But really, books are priceless – we just hope this will be a helpful gesture for those who lost their home libraries.”
Renowned Australian author Jackie French came across Book love for Tathra on Twitter. Armed with her contacts in the publishing world she quickly jumped on board.
She was on hand Saturday to talk with fans of all ages and sign copies of her books included in the collection.
Ms Pouliot said it was amazing to see the joy Saturday’s event created.
“The most beautiful thing about today was everyone getting together – the social side,” Ms Pouliot said.
“We tried to create a bookstore cafe type of vibe. It was lovely and a lot of people stayed for the whole day.”
A large number of appropriate books were also donated to the primary school library.
