Reading on the Go: Reflections of Summertime and the RIF Mobile

Recently while running errands on a Saturday morning I saw a large RV covered with colorful pictures of a selection of gas ranges. This sight reminded me of my summer days as a kid when the large colorful RIF Mobile would visit our neighborhood.

Typically the only big vehicles that dared to come down the narrow winding streets of my neighborhood were the occasional delivery semi bringing new appliances or furniture to a lucky family who had a recent windfall playing the Stocks and Races, the milkman’s refrigerated van and the Mr. Softie ice cream truck.  On one special day in early summer there would be another large motor coach that rolled through the streets – the Reading is Fundamental mobile. This converted RV was a virtual library on wheels. The colorful unit decorated with images of children of varied hues reading volumes of exciting tales would slowly move down the winding hilly streets of my Southwestern, PA neighborhood. The mid morning air would fill with ringing from carousal chimes that beckoned youngsters out to sample the world through print.

For several years I’d board the mobile library and choose two books from among an assortment of texts, novels and nursery rhymes.  At first I could not find anything that looked interesting, but then the mobile Librarian pointed me to a book by Janice May Udry – What Mary Jo Shared.  This was a book about a young African American girl’s struggle to come up with something she could share during Show n’ Tell.  This little girl’s story was gripping to my six-year-old psyche and the chronicles of her journey became one of my favorites. In subsequent years when the book mobile rolled through our community I would look for other stories about African American children and found several by Ezra Jack Keats, Sharon Bell Mathis and other titles by Udry that updated the adventures of Mary Jo (What Mary Jo Wanted and Mary Jo’s Grandmother). Seeing kids who looked like me on the covers of books made me want to open each one and read every page. These volumes soon became permanent fixtures in my personal library along with the Cookie Tree, Miss Suzy and a variety of Little Golden Books.

Today, my summers are filed with reading text books, statistics manuals and writing essays, professional articles and Blog entries about the thrills and quests that reading can bring to your front door. Reading is unquestionably FUNdamental!