It’s a Book Mania!

Harry Oldroyd’s face said it all last week, as four fully loaded boxes of books were wheeled out to greet him and be taken to their new home… Harry’s room.

Collins Booksellers launched an Australia wide competition for kids to enter at the end of 2020. The competition ensured kids found and counted all of the koalas that had appeared in the kids catalogue. Guessing the correct number then put their name into the draw, for it to then be mixed in with the hundreds of others, and to be picked out at random.

Harry was that lucky winner!

When Harry’s mother got the phone call, she tactfully told Harry to ensure she got the best reaction.

Harry explained, “Mum picked me up from school and she said she would have a surprise for me.. when we got home, she got me to stand next to a wall and she recorded my reaction when she told me, I was very excited.

“I’ll be busy reading,” Harry’s eyes widened as he dug through the top box. “I’m excited, I thought there would be like two little boxes, with little books but these are massive.”

Everything from chapter books to picture books filled the cardboard boxes.

Collins Bookstore Orange owner, Margaret Schwebel said, “It’s always exciting to have a local child involved and to see the books go into the local community. There were hundreds and hundreds of entries and we had to wait for the publishers to submit all of these books, so it’s taken a while to come through.

“It’s always a very popular competition to go in and it’s the first time there has been a winner in Orange. We get just as excited as kids do,” laughed Margaret, “I found out and said ‘Yess!’

We think it’s safe to say Harry won’t be buying books for a while and his friends and family may even benefit from Harry’s win.

Congratulations Harry!