Walking with Words

These boots were made for walking...

Book lover and Yorkshire hiker, Gail Richards is walking over 200kms across the West Yorkshire landscape to celebrate our 10^th anniversary and to raise £10,000 to help continue our literacy work in Ecuador, Malawi and Zambia.

Gail was inspired by the children's stories

From Hebden Bridge through Huddersfield, Wakefield and Leeds to Ilkley and onto Howarth, the 20-day loop hike throughout April will take Gail through the rich and diverse literary heritage that West Yorkshire has to offer. Gail will visit local schools, museums, groups and bookshops along the route collecting stories, join in reading and storytelling with local groups and collect unique stories, poems and word snippets from passers by as she walks over the Yorkshires hills, through valleys and along canal paths.

Said Gail “I volunteered on the Book Bus in Zambia with my daughter back in 2012 and it was one of the most inspiring times of our lives. Every day the Book Bus travels to schools and villages with books for children that have none. We shared books and stories then brought the books alive through art and drama with lots of fun thrown in."

Gail hopped aboard Book Bus Charlie working in Zambia 

Continued Gail, “Whilst in Zambia I heard the stories of some children that walked for an hour to get to school every day and an hour back, often through harsh terrain. I was so inspired by their insatiable desire to learn that I was determined to raise awareness of struggles many children have getting to school and accessing books. I love walking and I love books too I thought I’d combine these and walk through the landscape that I love, West Yorkshire.  I’m aiming to raise £10,000 to celebrate 10 years of the Book Bus and to help keep the Book Buses on the road to continue their vital projects,” concluded Gail.

Help Gail raise £10,000 for the Book Bus 

Follow Gail's route across West Yorkshire 

Gail's route across West Yorkshire

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. 

UK Volunteers needed to help the Book Bus

​We need you...

Do you have a few hours to spare each week? Our UK office is looking for volunteers to help keep the wheels of the Book Bus go round and round! 

We looking for help with general office duties, research, education outreach work and marketing. Opportunities are wide and varied and past volunteers have come from all walks of life and spread across many generations! 

We currently have 4 vacancies 

• a. Office Admin Support: Our office is based in Hackney in East London and we're looking for someone who can volunteer at least one day a week 
• b. Fundraising Volunteer: This roles offers volunteers the opportunity to work from home (anywhere in the UK) or in our London- based office. 
• c. Marketing and Social media: Can you help get our message out there? It's hard work but fun and you'll really be contributing to keeping the charity on the global map of literacy. You can work from home or in our London based office - the choice is yours! 
• d. Education and outreach worker. Can you help build our new UK schools programme? 

For more information 

Visit our website and tab along to "Volunteering in the UK'

Pop us an email info@thebookbus.org

Pick up the phone and let's have a chat on 0208 099 9280

World Book Day

The Book Bus Road Show was in for a special treat today at Sonning Common Primary School! We were met at the gate by McGonagall  from Hogwarts and treated to school lunch surrounded by Spiderman, Cinderella, The Artful Dodger, Harry Potter, Wally, numerous princesses and a host of other characters from the children's favourite books. This was World Book Day in action, if only everyday at school was like this!

Today's special topic was the Galapagos Islands, Isabel from Galapagos Conservation Trust showed us where the islands are and how important it has become to conserve their unique wildlife. We discovered that the population of 30,000 islanders receive 200,000 visitors every year who come to view the wildlife and admire the spectacular island landscapes The Book Bus project on the Galapagos works with 3 schools on Santa Cruz Island to help the children improve their reading and English language skills; this will improve their future job prospects within the flourishing tourist industry where literate and bi-lingual candidates are a much sought after resource!

Our whistle stop tour of the world continued to Zambia where we made Skype contact with project coordinator Monica and the children at Musonda Community School near Kitwe. With great whoops and much smiling and waving  the children enjoyed seeing how each other's schools looked. The Book Bus gave the children at Musonda a supply of valuable books and spent the day reading and drawing with them.




 After a day in the company of so many colourful and spectacular children, Book Bus George chugged out of the playground and trundled back to base. What a great day it was!