The low reading habit among children in Indonesia became a concern for many who think that this has been caused by the failure to present interaction space for children.
Many children books are seen as weak in presenting ideas and instill moral values, so, the children get bored and distance themselves from the books.
Suryo Buwono, Psychology student of UGM, thought that in this situation, the presence of story books have significance for children. In his opinion, the philosophy of designing a story book is similar with that building a hall.
“Both need the role two engineers, civil engineers and architects, the architect works in the esthetics and the engineer in the structure domain,” said Suryo Buwono at UGM on Friday (11/8).
Suryo said writers or illustrators are like architects who make beautiful buildings but not strong in terms of structure. Designing a story book needs someone who understands physics just like a civil engineer,
“For me, the physics in producing a story book means the psychology, because in psychology we learn cognitive schemes in children,” he said.
Suryo Buwono thought how to collaborate science, i.e psychology, and art to design a story book that is suitable to the psychology of children. Form here, he developed the Creative Laboratory, Archetales, in 2016, that is managed by bukusahabatbermain. A year later, the Lab published its first book, Adventure of Baros, which is sold at IDR75 thousand.
Adventure of Baros is a serial children book equipped with educational toy, which is papercraft. The book is distributed for free in regions that have difficult access to books.
“We try to make the book free for those children by empowering people’s participation. We made cross-subsidies. Profits from sold books are used to print the same title and distribute it for free to the children that need it,” said Suryo Buwono.
Creative Laboratory hoped that by doing this, the economic gap would not limit those that want to access the story books. “Those interested in getting a copy may contact 087839110160. More information can be seen on Instagram account, @bukusahabatbermain,” said Suryo.