NORWAY — High school teens Jacob Brophy, Kyleigh Collins and Matt Gammon volunteered with the Oxford Hills Bookmobile on Wednesday evenings during June and July, traveling to the childcare program, OT to Grow, and the residential communities of Alpine Park and Oxford Pine Regency.

On their weekly stops, they helped children select books, read books aloud to them and led the children in craft activities that highlighted a weekly creative theme on art, music, dance, work, poetry or storytelling.

Their weekly involvement gave the teen volunteers many opportunities to connect with the younger children and offered children a chance to interact with young adults interested in their reading and creativity.

This year children on the Wednesday evening bookmobile route also learned about good nutrition and sampling healthy snacks from Kate Goldberg of Healthy Oxford Hills. She incorporated each week’s nutritious taste treats with the theme of the book reading.

Examples included eating fresh carrots, snap peas, broccoli and cauliflower and discussing whether the food is a “top, bottom or middle,” to illustrate the children’s book, “Tops and Bottoms,” by Janet Stevens. On other evenings the children ate fresh fruit parfaits filled with yogurt, blueberries and raspberries, popcorn seasoned with herbs instead of butter, and individual baggies of sugar snap peas.

The community reading program for children of all ages ended on July 30. In addition to the Wednesday night locations, it also served children’s learning and daycare centers from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and was free and open to all children.

The bookmobile is run by Norway Memorial Library with the support of adult and youth volunteers and is supported by the Maine Reads program, the Norway-Paris Kiwanis Club and SAD 17 Adult Education and Technical School.

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