Lending a hand through books

By Marco Holden Jeffery

It certainly hasn’t been an easy few months for kids stuck at home in Melbourne - or their parents who have been working tirelessly to keep them entertained.

But Southbank resident Brigid May is one Melburnian trying to give them a bit of respite.

Working for artist-led community publisher Kids’ Own Publishing, Brigid had been featuring in weekly videos of her reading books made by kids from around the country.

“When the lockdown hit, I was thinking about all the kids who were suddenly put out of school and this was a way I could help out,” she said.

Brigid moved to Southbank from Western Australia last year, and with a background in children’s art education she quickly became involved with the Abbotsford Convent-based Kids’ Own Publishing.

Before the pandemic, the publisher would journey to classrooms, communities and festivals around the state and workshop little eight-page story books with children, expanding their archives of children-authored stories.

“It’s this major demographic of artists you don’t see in galleries or in art books, but it’s a whole group of people who are eager makers and create a lot of art,” Brigid said.

“To be the person who puts materials in front of a kid - I wouldn’t say a lot of teaching is involved - it feels like very important work.”

Art and storytelling would come very naturally to most children involved in the program, as they were not yet limited by self-doubt or the perfectionism that would creep in as they got older.

“It’s this approach to art as a form of play - you took a piece of paper and a box of textas and the kids would approach them as toys and just explore,” Brigid said.

“It’s great seeing art before any of those ideas about ‘capital A art’ come into play.”

When the pandemic hit, Brigid and Kids’ Own Publishing were no longer able to visit kids in schools and get them creating.

Instead, the publisher uploaded a series of videos featuring local artists explaining how to make the books at home - a very straight forward single piece of paper folded into eight pages - and send them in for submission.

And to further showcase the efforts of kids in isolation, Brigid erected the Book Cubby in her Southbank apartment, where she would put on her “Brigid” costume and read the stories in videos uploaded online.

The program - which would still be accepting submissions till the end of August - was a great success, reaching beyond Kids’ Own’s usual audience in Victoria to kids around the country, including a submission by two siblings from Brigid’s own Western Australia.

Despite this alternative way of connecting with kids, Brigid still missed the thrill of seeing a child creating right in front of her.

“It’s hard not being around the kids during the making process - there’s that wonderful moment where you receive the book from a kid - but all of the steps before that you’re not directly involved in,” she said.

Living in a built-up environment like Southbank was a new experience for Brigid, and she felt the pandemic was quite visible from her high-rise apartment.

“It’s in an interesting vantage point to see the effects of lockdown from - you can really see when the number of cars drops and suddenly you can’t see people walking around the riverbank,” she said.

For her, Southbank was a place that really relied on its community hubs - the galleries, the library, the theatres - and she felt locals would really be missing that sense of connection.

But she said that she could hopefully lend a feeling of community to some through her work in the Book Cubby.

“I always want to be surrounded by children’s art, and I’m really glad that we made this online program because I don’t think that we would have if not for the circumstances,” she said.

“I have seen a lot of art but when I read books made by kids I see different pictures every time.” •