Bookmobile rides again! Mobile bookstore brings literature to ‘book deserts’

CHICAGO — A local fight to end illiteracy has gone mobile.

If you’re over 40, there’s a good chance you have fond memories of something called The Bookmobile, the traveling library on wheels. Over the years, most were pulled from the road and stored away for a long time. But in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhoods, one has been resurrected and rides again.

For the last five years, Open Books

has doled out as many free books to kids as they can carry in their arms. For the older set, the warehouse operates under a unique “pay what you want” model.

It’s an effort to get books back in the community’s hands.

But that’s where we encounter a plot twist, in the form of a recent Illinois Policy report showing the ratio of children to books in surrounding communities at 300 to 1.

Martin Corral is the director of Open Books.

“We found that those places are book deserts in Chicago where books are not as accessible,” he said.

Which got their wheels turning — quite literally.

More information at https://www.open-books.org/

“We thought, how do we get more access to people out in our neighborhoods and communities, and we thought of the bookmobile, the mobile book store!” Corral said.

A fresh coat of paint and four new tires later, the classic bookmobile was resurrected and back on the road, currently focusing on two communities: North Lawndale and Little Village.

For months, the traveling bookstore has made numerous stops, delighting everyone who has stepped inside this little world of words. 

Open Books has found a way to get more than 1.3 million books into the hands of Chicago kids.

Now that all these kids are back in school, Open Books is working to get more literature into their classrooms.