UPDATED: Summer Book Bus Delivers Thousands of Free Books across Pinellas County

The Summer Book Bus is on the road in Pinellas County, working to combat learning loss through free books.

The bus makes an average of 70 stops across the county every summer and gives away nearly 10,000 free books in underserved neighborhoods.

“If a child is to pick their own book, they’re more likely to love it, enjoy it and read it,” said Joanna Maniscalco with the Juvenile Welfare Board.

The stops include libraries, communication recreation centers, family centers, childcare centers, schools and more.

Kids are invited onto the bus to pick two books to take home.

The bus is sponsored by the Juvenile Welfare Board in partnership with the school district. It’s part of JWB’s Early Readers, Future Leaders Grade-Level Reading Campaign.

The mission is to help curb summer slide, but this year there’s an extra need to get books to children who just graduated 3rd grade–those that were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit.

“Their last quarter of kindergarten, that’s when they ended up going home, basically, and not really having much schooling for nine weeks, and that really is when most of our kindergartners become readers,” explained Melissa Babanats, Principal of Lewis Elementary School in Hillsborough County.

While last years grades won’t be released until the fall in Florida, she said they’ve seen the rough numbers.

“We definitely saw a decline in our third grade this year, without a doubt,” Babanats said.

While the book bus will end soon, educators said parents and family members can help with reading loss.

“Read, read read. So one of the things I mean, as a parent myself, you know, no matter what your kids are reading have them read… from cereal boxes, to comic strips, it’s that whole practice makes perfect,” Babanats exclaimed.

See the remaining stops at https://www.jwbpinellas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2023-JWB-Summer-Book-Bus-Schedule.pdf

Read the UPDATED article and view the news segment with on-camera interviews at https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pinellas/summer-book-bus-delivers-thousands-of-free-books-across-pinellas-county