How one librarian's bookmobile is delivering the joy of reading

For Melissa Bartolomei, a veteran English teacher and library media specialist in New Hampshire, reading is like breathing.

"Some of my favorite family memories are my parents reading to me," says the longtime Nashua Teachers' Union member. "I can't really remember a time when I wasn't reading. There are books where I don't remember every plot point, but I remember how they made me feel."

That immersive feeling of joy is what led Bartolomei to spend more than two decades as an English teacher before becoming the library media specialist at Nashua High School North, where she is also the co-adviser of the literacy team and co-founder of the faculty and student book clubs. But her favorite day of the year, she says, is bookmobile day.

Once a year, with support from the AFT's Reading Opens the World initiative, Bartolomei and her team of teachers and honor students load up the Titan Bookmobile, a full-size school bus named for Nashua North's mascot, with thousands of books and ferry them to three public elementary schools. This year, on May 22, the bookmobile reached nearly 800 students and delivered more than 2,500 books, ranging from chapter books and graphic novels to books about one of the hottest topics on kids' minds at the moment: sharks.

But the purpose behind the free books is so much bigger than just a giveaway. The bus lets kids see reading as fun, personal and within reach.

For one little boy, that meant learning all about mummies.

"We had one book about mummies with kind of a scary cover, so I held it up and asked if anyone wanted it," Bartolomei says. "The look on this little boy's face was priceless. His eyes almost popped out of his head. He was so excited."

Other students arrived with very specific requests from friends who were absent and couldn't attend. Others picked out books for younger brothers and sisters. A few chose books because they wanted to read them with their parents.

"One little boy picked out a baseball book because he knew his dad liked baseball, and that they could share the book together," Bartolomei says.

For Bartolomei, that is the point. The books are not headed back to a classroom shelf or a school library. They are going home with the students.

"I really want them to build their at-home libraries," she says. "Having books at home impacts literacy levels, and so many of our kids are coming from homes where spending money to build a library isn't an option."

Bartolomei is right. Research shows that being able to reach out and grab a book at home is closely tied to how well kids do in school, and it boosts their future literacy and problem-solving skills even more than their parents' education level.

The bookmobile is designed to remove some of those barriers to owning books. Students do not have to sign up, pay, travel or return anything. They choose the books they want and take them home.

The joy of ownership still surprises some of them, Bartolomei says.

"One thing that kids over the years have said is, 'Oh, we get to keep the books?'" she says. "They are always so surprised and happy."

For Spanish-speaking students, the day carried another kind of meaning.

Among the high school volunteers were students from Nashua North's Spanish for 21st century careers class, a course for native Spanish speakers that prepares to use their bilingual skills in college, their communities and workplaces and includes a community service component. On bookmobile day, those students helped younger Spanish-speaking children choose books-and gave them someone to look up to.

At one school, Bartolomei watched one of the teenage volunteers sit on the grass with a group of younger Spanish-speaking students. The children surrounded her with gratitude and a little bit of awe.

"We love you," they told her. "Thank you for helping us in Spanish. Thank you for speaking Spanish."

The younger children saw so much more than someone helping them find a book. They saw an older student who spoke their language, was successful in the high school they would attend someday and was using bilingualism as a strength.

The day was filled with examples of the bookmobile's long-term impact.

"There was one little girl in line who wasn't paying attention to a thing because she was already engrossed in her book," Bartolomei says. "She wasn't bothered by anything happening around her. Because she was reading."

And that, Bartolomei says, is the point.

[Melanie Boyer]