Robbi & Matthew's Busload of Books, Phase Two

The Busload of Books is a national literacy access initiative by children's author/ illustrator, duo Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr (that's us!).

Your support allows us to bring free books and creativity programming to kids in high-need communities across the United States—and to facilitate unprecedented research on how such literacy interventions impact elementary student attitudes about reading, writing, and drawing.

We've been at it for a while:

We and our four kids and two dogs, spent the 2022-2023 school year living and traveling the country in a tiny home school bus:

Across a year on the road, we:

THE WORK CONTINUES

We're back home now, but the bus will keep rolling. There are nearly 47,000 Title I schools in the United States.

Starting in fall 2024, we'll be serving twelve Title I schools each year by offering free assemblies and a free book for each student and teacher:

We'll continue collecting data for our research partnership with Washington College.

The books will be funded and shipped through our partnership with Build-A-Bear foundation and First Book.

THE NEED IS REAL

Books have been shown to have a positive impact on reading, academic performance, and language development. And yet books are often scarce for the kids who need them most. The ratio of children to books in our nation's low-income communities is 300-to-1.

THIS APPROACH WORKS.

We've done more than 70 all-school book giveaways in Title I schools (serving children from high-need communities), and the results have always been the same: Kids dive into reading and drawing. They start telling their own stories. They gain a sense of heightened possibility.

The research backs it up!

The Busload of Books research team collected more than 11,000 surveys from more than 5,000 students and teachers, and what they found was incredibly exciting.

Across all elementary age groups and all three literacy categories—reading, writing, and drawing—there was a statistically significant “assembly affect”, meaningful bumps in engagement and interest in the wake of our visit.

PLEASE HELP US KEEP THE BUS ROLLING!

We need your support to bring books and high-quality programming to schools where books are in short supply and there's no room in the budget for author/illustrator visits.

The best way to fuel our ongoing efforts is to support us via Patreon. This provides an ongoing and consistent base for our various creative, educational, and awareness-building ventures.

If you'd prefer to make a one-time donation:

Click here to contribute any amount through GoFundMe.

Or make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION OF $100 OR MORE via our fiscal sponsor Kent Cultural Alliance. Be sure to mention "Busload of Books" in the notes field!

WE TRAVEL IN EXCELLENT COMPANY.

We partner with an incredible national nonprofit, a leading college, and a beloved local arts organization.

FIRST BOOK helps us identify schools where our visit and books will have the greatest impact.

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AT WASHINGTON COLLEGE is using data we collected to power a major research project on the impact of author visits on creativity and literacy. 

KENT CULTURAL ALLIANCE will accept tax-deductible donations of $100 and above on our behalf. Be make sure to mention "Busload of Books" in the notes field!

WHO WE ARE

Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr (that's us!) are author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed Cookie Chronicles series, The Real McCoys trilogy, and the picture books Sunrise Summer, Babies Ruin Everything, and Everywhere, Wonder. When not advocating for local schools, giving talks on creative entrepreneurship, or commercial salmon fishing in Alaska, we live in the hayloft of an old barn on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Learn more about Busload of Books:

Read our profile in the Washington Post. 

Visit our website. 

Books have the power to change lives.

Everyone should have access to them!

Learn more about our books.

Follow us on Instagram , Facebook, and YouTube .