Rockford — You can catch it cruising the community all summer long, resplendent in bright blue, bringing reading material to the masses. It’s the Rockford Book Bus, and its season on the road is now in full gear.
Stopping by Meadow Ridge Elementary during the first week of its summer schedule, the library on wheels was greeted by throngs of excited students; some were at Meadow Ridge for summer school, while others came out just to see what the Book Bus had to offer.
Among the latter was Meadow Ridge fourth-grader Lyla Stoll, who quickly boarded the bus and commenced giddily hunting for spooky summer reads.
“I’m looking for something scary,” Lyla said, flipping through the stacks. “I like scary books.”
Her love of such books was jump-started by “Goosebumps” and “Twilight”; now she reads them determinedly, with the goal of someday making herself impervious to even the spookiest text. She found something suitably eerie aboard the Book Bus: “The Forgotten Girl” by India Hill Brown.
Third-grader Riley Sawyer paid her first visit to the Book Bus during its stop at Meadow Ridge.
“I thought (the selection) was really good,” Riley said as she stepped off the bus with books in hand. She had hoped to find an “easy” book and a chapter book that would be a bit more challenging, and she was successful.
“I got a ‘Magic Treehouse’ book and ‘The Last Day of Kindergarten,’” Riley said. “I love to read new books and stuff.”
She also emerged from the bus equipped with snacks and a sticker on which a simple directive was inscribed: “Read more books!”
Riley plans to do just that.
A Traveling Library is Born
The Book Bus, funded by the Rockford Education Foundation, has been bringing books to students like Lyla and Riley for the past four years.
It was conceived by Belmont Elementary Principal Rachel DeKuiper and Rockford Literacy Director Sharon Wells.
“I always wanted to have a book bus,” DeKuiper told SNN, noting that her idea didn’t gain traction until she pointed out that Rockford had a “graveyard” of unused buses that could potentially be tapped for the venture.
Beth Meyer-Kraff, executive director of the REF, said the foundation contributed around $30,000 to have an old Rockford school bus retrofitted and turned into a traveling library.
The district’s transportation and maintenance departments worked together to prep the bus for its transformation.
“They were able to tear out all of the seating, put in all the shelves, purchase books — we were able to put in funding for the paint job, the awning,” Meyer-Kraff said. “Basically all the funds we provided were able to take an old school bus and turn it into what it is today.”
The exterior design — complete with a slogan, “Reading takes you places” — was handled by a Rockford High School student named Kristi Weaver.
“It was done during that weird COVID time,” Meyer-Kraff said, adding that the intention was to “bring books to kids” even when schools and libraries were closed.
Keeping Kids Excited About Reading
The Book Bus features books for all grade levels, K-12, though it mostly caters to elementary-level students. Books are loaned out using the honor system, and they can be returned to schools or to the bus itself.
It routinely visits all of Rockford’s elementary schools, also making time for several of the area’s daycare centers. The bus even makes visits to cul-de-sacs and other neighborhoods at the request of district residents, said Chris Pitsch, an Edgerton Trails and Meadow Ridge STEAM teacher who helps out with the mobile library in the summer.
‘We like to keep the kids reading throughout the summer — and excited about reading.’
— STEAM teacher Chris Pitsch
Ever since it hit the road, the Book Bus has been a “huge, huge hit” with students, said Pitsch.
“We’re driving down the road and kids, you can hear them, saying ‘Book Bus! Book Bus!’” Pitsch said. “Everybody waves at it and it’s always fun.”
In addition to reading material, the bus also comes bearing games, snacks and reading-themed swag. Pitsch and her fellow workers take turns reading to children at each stop, too.
“We like to keep the kids reading throughout the summer — and excited about reading,” Pitsch said. “They can be forced by their parents to read over the summer, but this just kind of helps keep the excitement of reading, and giving them new genres and books that they wouldn’t necessarily have at their fingertips.”
Rachel Devereaux, a teacher at Cannonsburg Elementary working at Meadow Ridge’s summer school program, said the Book Bus plays an important role in summer learning.
“It provides an opportunity for all kids to keep up with their reading while also looking for new books,” Devereaux said. “Not everybody gets the chance to head to the public library during the summer, specifically, so it just offers a quick, easy way for kids to engage with books.”
The bus is popular among parents, too. Meredith Longo, mother of two preschool-age students, said the library-on-wheels is “great because it gets us out to a new location … and gets (kids) reading, and reading with other people.”
Added Longo, “I just think it’s, all around, a good thing for the community.”
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