El Bichito: Impromptu moving library

The latest from Sunny Hicken at El Bichito:

September 29

This last Friday was a field trip day for the whole school district, so lunch and activities at El Bichito were cancelled. Our youngest, Lily, is attending the Jardin de Ninos here in Puylucana, so she had a field trip as well. The young children had their mothers, and some of their fathers and siblings, along for the trip, and we all ended up together on a long bus ride. I had tucked three lightweight books into my backpack to entertain Lily on the bus, and little did I know what a hit they would be! By the end of the trip, we had a regular lending library going on inside the bus. Kids would come down the aisle, borrow one book, bring it back a little later, wait for a different book to be returned, and take that one back to their seat. Once they read all three books, they would start over again. I read to them some (when we were stopped for construction or just waiting—I get sick reading while in motion, and Peruvian mountain roads are certainly no exception), but they would take the book to their mothers or older siblings, or just look at it. The boy next to me who came along with his mom and little brother read through “Big Dog, Little Dog” several times, and each time he got through it a little faster. I got to know his mother, who helped make it clear to the other children that no, they could not take the books home but could only borrow them while on the bus. Her husband drives a moto for a living, and she has a hard time making ends meet, and we talked about El Bichito. Two of the books were also in English, and sometimes the kids or their mothers asked for me to read to them in English as well. Another brother and sister who were enthusiastic about reading the books recognized the name “el Bichito” inside the cover and said they used to come, and I invited them to come again. It was a fun experience to see how these children loved the books and how their mothers were also glad to see them reading them. It was definitely some positive outreach for El Bichito and for developing a culture of reading for fun and to our children.