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APS Elementary Chosen for National Literacy Initiative

Posted January 14, 2025, 3:06 PM. Updated January 14, 2025, 3:06 PM.

Every Mission Avenue student and teacher will received free book and an opportunity to interact with the author and illustrator.

Mission Avenue Elementary is one of 12 schools nationwide selected for the Busload of Books initiative aimed at boosting literacy.

“Our entire school has received books for every student,” said Karen Rademacher, a resource teacher at Mission Avenue. 

Author Matthew Swanson and illustrator Robbi Behr spearhead the national literacy project as a way to promote reading and creativity at Title 1 schools. As part of the initiative, Swanson and Behr participate in assemblies and provide free books to every student and teacher at 12 Title I schools across the country. Six of those assemblies are in-person and the other six – including the one that took place Tuesday at Mission Avenue – are virtual.  

First Book and Build-A-Bear Foundation provided 6,000 free books for the initiative–one for every student and teacher in each of the 12 schools.

“We’ve seen hundreds of times the empowering impact author/illustrator visits can have on school communities,” Swanson and Behr said in a news release. “When kids realize we’re just regular people, they recognize their own capacity to create. They start reading, writing, drawing and telling their own stories.”

Mission Avenue students in Pre-K through second grade received “Everywhere, Wonder,” described as a picture book about observation and storytelling. Students in grades three through five received “Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom,” a book “about figuring out what’s most important and living one’s life to the fullest.”

Dawnielle Rodriguez, a Pre-K teacher at Mission Avenue, applied for her school to be part of the Busload of Books initiative.

“When the opportunity arose, I saw it as a wonderful way to provide our students with an experience they might not otherwise have,” she said.  

Rodriguez said a key component of the tour is a research project aimed at exploring how author/illustrator visits impact students, teachers and communities, particularly in  Title 1 communities. 

“Our school has been given color-coded surveys to complete before, immediately after, and 30 days following the visit to measure the impact of this visit,” she said.