Reading on Wheels program gets kids excited - WSFA.com: News Weather and Sports for Montgomery, AL.

Thousands of school children in our area have a new tool for summer learning.  It's called the Brain Forest, a colorful library on wheels, and is used to boost reading during the summer months.  This bus is all about getting kids excited about books.

On the outside, it's a bright yellow bus with pictures of monkeys and birds.  But it's what is  inside that's important.  Shelves and shelves of books that come to the children.

"This bus is the door to imagination.  Yes, they are going to play games, but nothing beats that book in their hand."

Ann Sikes is the Executive Director of the Montgomery Education Foundation.  She says this bus provides an easy opportunity for summer learning.

"If they don't, not only do they not gain in their learning, they actually lose.  So wherever they were at the end of the year, they're going to be behind that starting in the fall and have to catch up.  So the summer Reading on Wheels program & what this bus represents is that opportunity to keep that link."

Volunteers read to the kids and teach them ways to make reading fun.

"I like to read, yes I do!  I like to read, how about you!".

And adventure that can take them anywhere in the Brain Forest and beyond.

"And they don't even have to leave where they are; their mind can go where ever they want to.  And I think this bus really enhances and encourages children to think about reading in that format and think about it as something that's an adventure to be taken every summer.  And this kind of look makes it even more fun," says Sikes.

This summer, they'll serve more than 4000 children at 22 different sites around the city.  Program directors say the kids' favorite part is the accelerated reader competition, which is a computerized comprehension test where they earn points that kids take after they read the books.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Reading on Wheels program.  The Summer Reading programs lasts until August 10th.

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