Little red reading wagon brings books to Glen Cove's beaches

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If you go to Pryibil Beach this summer, consider bringing an old children’s book. The Reading Wagon always has room for donations.

It all started about three years ago, when Diane Bruschini, a reading teacher at Deasy School set out to remedy a trend: many grown-ups read at the beach, but children usually do not.

Thanks to her efforts, that trend has ended. Now, each day, Pryibil Beach lifeguards cart out a red wagon filled with a selection of books for beachgoers of all ages to enjoy. And children have certainly been taking advantage of the opportunity. According to lifeguard Jessica Dawes, at first, the kids are shy about it, approaching the wagon with cautious curiosity. “We tell them, ‘You can take them,’” Dawes said. “They’re like, ‘Really? No way!’ and they get all excited.”

Alyssa Zangari, who works at the snack stand and has a clear view to the wagon said, “There’s always kids and parents asking if [the books] are free.” When she tells them yes, but that it runs on the honor system and asks that they return what they take, or replace it with another book, they say, ‘Oh my God, it’s such a good idea.’

Tommy Curran, 9, said that he plans on borrowing a book from the wagon, even though he hasn’t yet. “I like that you can take any book out you want,” he said. “I think it’s good to read during the summer”

Getting books into children’s hands is not a foreign concept to Bruschini. About six years ago, after speaking with several of her students, she discovered that many of them spend their weekends at local laundromats sitting idly for hours watching clothes spin around in washing machines. When she heard that, she decided to try to help her students turn those hours of boredom into hours of learning.

She remembered an article she had read about an upstate New York town that had “traveling books,” where people collected books and left them in places where they thought kids could pick them up and read them. Believing she could bring a similar system to Glen Cove, Bruschini said, “I started collecting books that were discarded from our libraries and in the schools, from parents, and even from my own collection.”

She dropped them off at different laundromats and other places around town, like the senior centers, so the members would have books to read to their grandchildren when they visited. Eventually, she developed a network of places that were regularly expecting her deliveries. Once every few months, she drops by each of the eight participating laundromats to replenish them with fresh reads.

The wagon has gotten so popular, she said, that sometimes when she goes into work she has piles of donated books on her desk waiting for her to distribute them to their new homes.

After running the laundromat program for about three years, she started thinking about where these kids spend most of their time in the summers, and thought, Pryibil Beach. She thought it would be a good idea to expand this project down to the city’s beaches. She came up with the idea for the little red wagon.

Bruschini’s daughter Julie, who has been a lifeguard for the city for many years, brought the idea to Glen Cove’s Director of Parks and Recreation, Darcy Belyea, who immediately gave her the okay to bring the books to the beach.

“It was really just a simple concept,” she said. “She asked if she could bring this wagon down to the beach with books and keep it in the lifeguard shack. The lifeguards could bring it out each day and help replenish it. I said go right ahead.”

Belyea has enjoyed watching the Reading Wagon work its magic. “I love the enthusiasm of watching young kids in bathing suits pouring through the choices and getting excited over what the next book is going to be that they read,” she said.

“It’s very small,” Bruschini said. “It costs nothing, and it really doesn’t require much time or effort to do, but it really contributes to our community.”

She said that when she began the project six years ago she didn’t expect it to take off like it has. “With the time it’s had to grow and flourish, however,” she noted, “it has really taken off.”