Newtownards 'book-eating' bus inspires readers

A unique "Book-Eating Bus" is inspiring readers young and old in a County Down estate and beyond.

West Winds Primary School in Newtownards has converted an old double-decker bus into its school library.

According to school principal, Niall Manogue, the library is the result of hard work by parents, pupils and staff.

The well-known children's author Oliver Jeffers also lent his support and illustrations to the project.

The 150-pupil school found itself without the room for a library, according to Mr Manogue.

"We had given up our last classroom in the school because we'd set up a new learning support unit, so we were looking for a space to put our library," he told BBC News NI.

"I'd seen a school in London that had done something similar to this.

"I met a couple of dads at the school gate one day and I was talking to them about it and it turned out that one of them was a metal worker and the other used to work for Translink.

"We thought: 'Hold on, should we maybe take this project on together'. So we did."

After a bit of a search, the school managed to find and buy an old double-decker bus.

Then it was down to the hard work of converting it, which was a whole community effort according to Mr Manogue.

He said parents, children, teachers, classroom assistants and caretakers all came together to transform the bus, before it opened in Halloween last year.

"We spent about nine months cleaning it, prepping it, fitting it out, making it ready for a library for the children in school," he said.

"We had about 15 to 20 parents who were involved in all sorts of different things.

"We had some there with buckets and mops, people there with paintbrushes and then we had folk doing more specialised things, so a whole host."

The school also received a grant from the UK-based Foyle Foundation, which provides money for school libraries, which went towards a supply of new books.

They had some special help from the children's author Oliver Jeffers too, as the outside of the bus is decorated with his illustrations.

"In that wonderful way that in Northern Ireland everyone's connected to everybody else, we have a teacher whose husband works with Rory Jeffers, Oliver's brother," Mr Manogue said.

"They were talking about the idea and we're huge fans of Oliver here in school so we asked could we use some of his artwork and he said: 'Yes'.

"We called it The Incredible Book Eating Bus which is a nod to his book The Incredible Book Eating Boy."

As a result the bus has become a local landmark.

"It's the talk of the town," Mr Manogue said.

"Like lots of schools we do lots of work around the mechanics of reading and that's crucial but we also don't want to lose that love of reading.

"We don't want to lose that imaginative, creative 'wow' moment you get with reading that we want children to have."

Mr Manogue said the library bus doesn't just inspire reading.

"You can sit in the front of the bus as if you're bus driver, so for some of our younger children there's the imaginative play you get from that as well as the library," he said.

But though the bus does not move, the school aims to bring in more of the local community.

That includes holding adult literacy classes on board in partnership with the local further education college.

"We want to show beyond the West Winds that as a school and as a community we're serious about reading, and serious about helping the children fall in love with books," Mr Manogue said.