'Hobbyville' book encourages kids to find hobbies during quarantine

Tim and Alicia Santana-Taylor (courtesy photo)

DOWNEY — Tim Taylor plays golf. His wife Alicia Santana-Taylor makes and sells hair bows.

Their new book aims to help young children find hobbies that they can enjoy as well.

The couple both currently work for Los Angeles Unified School District, Taylor as a school psychologist and Santana-Taylor as a psychiatric social worker. As the coronavirus first began to take hold, both started to notice a troubling trend: many of the students they worked with were finding it hard to cope with their newfound isolation.

To help, they wrote and self-published “To Hobbyville We Go!”

“The book is a rhyming book for children; early elementary, kindergarten through second grade age,” said Taylor. “Basically when the pandemic started, we had the idea, ‘Hey, let’s write a book about hobbies,’ because…we were doing a lot of therapy sessions over Zoom with our students, and what we were hearing was, ‘All I do is watch TV, there’s nothing to do.’”

“We felt like ‘Hey, let's put a book out there that encourages them to find hobbies that are just not sitting around and watching TV.’”

Santana-Taylor added that they wanted to help kids find things that were easy to do at home during the current time.

“They don’t have to really go anywhere because we knew they were stuck in a certain location,” said Santana-Taylor. “We understand the mental health piece because we’re working in that field. We understand all the benefits that come from having a hobby; not just fun – that’s a great thing, kids want to do fun things – but it’s also benefiting their physical health and their mental health.”

“It boosts confidence, it boosts creativity. They have better social skills because of it. There’s so many benefits. We wanted them to be able to explore all the hobbies that are out there.”

To Hobbyville We Go is the couple’s first book. It is their first venture into a self-published work.

“It’s absolutely been an amazing process,” said Taylor. “…it was months and months and months of perfecting every line of text, working with an illustrator who’s in Canada who’s really talented via Zoom and email.”

Downey Mayor Claudia M. Frometa with Tim and Alicia Santana-Taylor, authors of “To Hobbyville We Go!”

The book was illustrated Robyn Leavens.

“It had it’s challenging moments just because I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call her; we had to schedule times,” said Santana-Taylor. “She’s really good, so we really wanted to stick with her because we knew that she would bring our book to life.”

“It was interesting having to work with someone via Zoom in a different country, but I think the end result, I think we’re really happy with it.”

The Taylor’s say that they have invested thousands of dollars into the project, however it’s really not an endeavor to make profit from.

 “We want [kids] to be able to feel better, and we know the benefits of hobbies,” said Santana-Taylor. “We really want as many kids to be able to see this and be excited about trying a new hobby…”

Taylor and Santana-Taylor plan on donating hundreds of their books to inner-city schools, as well as to Downey Library and to Carpenter Elementary School, where their daughter attends.

More information can be found on Instagram at @hobbyvillebooks, and it can be purchased at www.hobbyvillebooks.com.

Downey residents who purchase a book can request contactless porch drop-off.