Sharon Joines stands ready outside the van used as a bookmobile geared to English-as-a-second language pupils, as she makes a stop at Miles Apartments in Sparta during her weekly route.

ESL bookmobile is a rolling library

It's a traveling, bilingual lending library. Then again, it's sort of a mini-summer school on wheels. "It keeps the kids reading during the summer and improving their vocabulary," said Sharon Joines, who is operating a bookmobile for English-as-a-second-language (ESL) pupils in June and July, under the auspices of Alleghany County Schools' special programs department. "It's so they don't forget what they learned. "Joines runs a route in Sparta Wednesday afternoons. She makes the rounds in the Glade Creek area on Thursdays. The bookmobile was run on a limited basis last summer, set up by Special Programs Director Janice Linker and former ESL/Migrant Program Coordinator Sandra Pollard. This is the first summer the bookmobile is running every week in June and July. It complements the ESL/migrant summer program at Sparta Elementary School.

About 50 children attend that program, Joines said, most of whom are not required to do so. "I'm going to all the kids in summer school and anybody living around them," she said. "I'm pretty much touching all the families, including the families that don't go to summer school. " She said the bookmobile serves about 35 children.

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