Volunteer with the Book Bus in the UK

Tom volunteered in between travelling

Volunteers are the backbone of what we do. We know that due to personal commitments many people would like to volunteer with us, but don't want to leave the UK. 

We've recently created lots of new opportunities for people to spend time volunteering with us on specific UK projects. 

Read about Tom's experience working with our marketing team... 

"I volunteered for Book Bus in between my travels. I was eager to do something useful with my free time so sought some voluntary work which I could do from home. 

From the word go, the Book Bus team were very welcoming and showed great trust with the projects that they set me. I felt like I was making a positive contribution with the tasks that I completed. 

The work was varied and included editing newsletter articles, researching children's book authors, searching for new online forums and literacy websites as well as identifying new channels of communication which we could use to reach out to new volunteers. I made some real progress and earned a huge amount of satisfaction from creating new leads for a worthwhile charity. 

I would encourage anyone with an interest in books or experience in working with children to offer their time to Book Bus. 

I'm now off to spend time with my next big passion - travel and skiing..."

We're looking for volunteers that can help spread the word about the Book Bus. If you have marketing experience and can spare a few hours each week, we'd love to hear from you. Get in touch with marian@thebookbus.org

Your work WILL make a difference. 

Arturo’s Book of the Week

Book Bus Ecuador

“The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”

"Everybody knows the story of the Three Little Pigs. Or at least they think they do. But I'll let you in on a little secret. Nobody knows the real story, because nobody has ever heard my side of the story. I'm Alexander T. Wolf. You can call me Al. I don't know how this whole Big Bad Wolf thing got started, but it's all wrong. Maybe it's because of our diet. Hey, it's not my fault wolves eat cute little animals like bunnies and sheep and pigs. That's just the way we are. If cheeseburgers were cute, folks would probably think you were Big and Bad too. But like I was saying, the whole big bad wolf thing is all wrong. The real story is about a sneeze and a cup of sugar.”

Our new book of the week in Ecuador

And so opens Jon Scieszka’s  “True Story of the Three Little Pigs” or, in its Spanish version, “La verdadera historia de los tres cerditos”. We introduced this book to the Grade 7 children in Puerto Lopez during the week and they were really curious to find out if, and how, this comical parody could set the record straight and prove that the wolf’s “Big and bag” reputation was really the result of a stitch up.

Serious discussion ensued

The classes read in three groups of 8 children, each child taking turns to share the reading with the rest of the group. To add a little spice to the activity and to extract a learning outcome from the story, each group had to come up with “reasoned” answers to the following questions and present them to a “Judge” who was to deliberate the case.

1. What really caused the houses of straw and sticks to collapse?

2. Why did the wolf end up in prison?

3. How innocent were the pigs really?

4. Was the Wolf villain or victim?

With not an inconsiderable amount of mentoring, the groups produced their cases and according to their beliefs took the side of either the wolf or the pigs. A hotly argued 

Unexpected Canine support for Mr Wolf

debate ensued producing a lot of huffing and puffing that required regular enforcement of court order! 

Finally, justice was seen to be done when the Judge ruled that . . . 

Oh, but that would be telling dear readers, for you must buy your own copies to discover the Wolf’s story and deliberate on this challenging conundrum for yourselves! And when you have finished the book, why not share it with children all over the world by sending it to the Book Bus for distribution to one of our projects in Africa or Ecuador.

Happy Reading!

Special thanks to Susan Cassie and Sue Clapham for sending us these wonderful books !