The Book Spot Bus, Inc.

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Louisville, KY
The Book Spot Bus, Inc.

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We give away new and gently used books in order to ignite, foster and sustain the love of reading. Our bus, whose name is Bev, has a story behind her.

One of our founders, Julie Johnson, had a good friend in college named Beverly who always loved children’s books. After college, Beverly got her master’s degree in library science and became a children’s librarian in Indianapolis and then in Arlington, Virginia. Beverly was a fascinating person with an encyclopedic knowledge of many subjects. Her true love was interacting with kids and helping each of them find that perfect book. In her early 40’s, Beverly was diagnosed with myotonic muscular dystrophy. She eventually was unable to work, but she continued to volunteer with children at her local library until her health deteriorated to the point where she had to move into an assisted living facility. Her health issues didn’t stop her, though, and she created a library for the other residents at her facility with books donated by her friends. Beverly died in 2020 at the age of 50. For months after that, Julie mulled over how she might honor Beverly’s memory and continue to celebrate her love of children’s literature. Enter founder Anne Pierson. Anne and Julie met through their neighborhood's book club and quickly realized they had a lot in common, including passions for children’s literature and social justice. They brainstormed and researched ideas on how to get books to people who might have access barriers, and the book bus idea was born.

08/25/2026

Rest in peace, Dear Dolly. You did so much good during your time here.

08/22/2026

We paid our first visit to St. Joseph Children's Home this afternoon! The kids were delightful, and they picked out 450 books ❤️📚

08/16/2026

Kinda chic to be a bookmobile 😀🚌📚

07/31/2026

Bev the Bus had a fabulous time clowning around at Kosair for Kids’ Back to School Bash! The kids took home 785 books 🩷🤡

07/25/2026

Do we know any kids needing some volunteer hours before school starts? We’ve got 20+ boxes of donated books to sort. It can be fun, we promise 😀 Message us if you’re interested.

07/20/2026

This is such a powerful message from Mychal Threets. We sometimes do have kids at our events who say they don't like books, and our response is always "that's totally okay!" If they are still engaged, we try to figure out if we brought any books that might interest them. Mychal is right- graphic novels and Dogman (or Captain Underpants/ Diary of a Wimpy Kid/Babysitter's Club/Raina Telgemeier books) usually get their attention😁

07/14/2026

Our schedules did not work out for us to do an event this summer with Passionist Earth and Spirit Center’s Camp Odyssey at Shawnee. We were able to drop off 196 books for the kids, and they sent us these sweet pictures 🩷📚

07/13/2026

We had a wonderful event Friday with the students at Breakthrough Louisville! We weren’t able to get pictures of the kids, but they seemed pretty excited to take home 268 books ❤️📚

06/30/2026

Happy birthday to us! On this day 5 years ago we received our nonprofit status! Earlier in 2021, cofounders Anne Pierson and Julie Johnson had a dream of giving away donated books to kids and bringing the books directly to kids. So they bought a shuttle bus. Anne got to work tearing out the seats and painting the lumber for the shelves. Julie put out the call on Facebook to see if her friends had any gently used children’s books to donate. Bev the Bus (named after a dear friend of Julie’s, a children’s librarian, who passed away in 2020) got a fabulous makeover. Friends and friends of friends immediately stepped up and offered their support in so many ways. Alice Gob and Andrea Caldwell jumped in and joined us as members of our Board of Trustees. Since June 30, 2021, we’ve collected over 40,000 books and given away 33,394 of them! We regularly partner with over 20 local nonprofits for events. We tell the kids they can have as many books as they want, and they are always so excited to have lots of books from which to choose. We are 100% volunteer, and we never charge any fees for our events. This has been an incredible 5 years filled with hard work, countless smiles and true community. We are beyond grateful!❤️

06/08/2026

Thanks Brighter Day Community for the great pictures!

Address

Louisville, KY

Telephone

+15023961070

Website

http://www.bookspotbus.org/

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