COLRAIN — To the delight of students at Colrain Central School, the Busload of Books recently rolled to town.

Colrain Central School was selected to be one of 12 schools visited by the bus this year, and was the only school in New England that was chosen. Through a partnership between First Book, a nonprofit that works to increase literacy and provide books to students in lower-income districts, and the Build-A-Bear Foundation, the husband and wife author/illustrator team of Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr visited the schools, and offered each student a book and stuffed bear that can serve as a reading buddy.

Librarian Talia Miller said she gets a lot of books for the Colrain Central School library through First Book. Miller learned about the Busload of Books through a newsletter about First Book resources and programs for Title I schools, which are schools in districts where a large number of students come from low-income families.

“I got an email inviting me to apply for this and we got picked,” Miller said. “It’s great because author visits really help get kids excited about reading, and they each got a copy of the book for free and have been reading it.”

Younger students at the school each received a copy of “Everywhere, Wonder,” and students in fourth through sixth grade each received a copy of “Ben Yokoyama and the Fortune Cookie of Doom.” Additionally, all fourth graders from throughout the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont Regional school districts received a copy of “Ben Yokoyama” and joined the Colrain students to meet the book bus team.

“As authors, we get invited to visit elementary schools to talk about books and we quickly noticed we were only getting invited to pretty affluent places, either private schools or public schools in wealthier communities. At our kids’ school, over 80% of the students live below the poverty line, and so we said, ‘Kids in these communities are not getting enough opportunities,’” Swanson explained. “Author visits are a great way to create excitement for reading and being creative, and we wanted more kids to have that opportunity. So we raised a bunch of money, about [$250,000], and we bought and renovated this bus.”

Behr said she wanted to create a landscape mural on the bus, and incorporated characters from their books, as well some references to their real lives, such as a painting of their dog Dumbles.

“I wanted to do a landscape because we were traveling the landscape, and put characters from our books,” Behr recounted. “It’s fun for kids to play and look for their favorite characters. I just wanted them to have fun.”

Renovations to the bus’ interior were done with help from a friend who restores old vehicles. The old bus seats were removed and in their place they installed a galley kitchen, complete with a hotplate and toaster oven, a dining nook with a table that converts into a bed, and a pop-up tent on the roof for additional sleeping space.

Swanson said renovating the bus took about a year, and fundraising and planning for it took more than three years.

During their first tour, which occurred during the 2022-2023 school year, Swanson and Behr packed their family into the bus and drove across the country, visiting one school in each state and donating 25,000 books all while living in the bus.

“It was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. I thought the kids were gonna be all on top of each other. I think we had really low expectations and they were exceeded,” Behr said. “We had a different backyard everyday and we didn’t spend that much time in the bus. We would drive in the bus, and then we’d get where we were going and go for a hike or to explore. … The bus is really just where we slept.”

After spending a year living in the bus, Swanson, Behr, and their four kids and two dogs, were ready to return home, but they weren’t ready to give up their mission to inspire creativity and a love for reading in lower-income school districts. For the 2024-2025 school year, the pair agreed to just visit 12 schools in 12 states, and marked each one on a map painted on the bus.

While Colrain Central School was the last stop on this year’s tour, Swanson and Behr say they intend to go on additional tours in the future, and continue supporting students and teachers in lower-income school districts.

“I believe that public school teachers are doing the hardest job that there is, Behr said. “It’s the hardest and the most important job, and they do not get the respect, pay or resources they deserve.”

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.