Bookworm pals bridge the generation gap

Program links people across generations to share their favourite stories via Zoom

Although a grandmother with some experience reading to young ones, Margaret Reveley was “a little intimidated at first” when she became a Bookworm Friend.

“I think some people in the program have an education background,” said the 65-year-old Chilliwack resident. “I do not, and I was wondering how this was going to work for us.”

As it turns out, she didn't have to worry. She and her four-year-old Bookworm Friend got along like gangbusters.

“When I saw his little face staring back at me, it was almost an instant connection. And he was so into it.”

The Bookworm Friends program matches readers from three to seven years with adults 55-plus. Annette Williams, the literacy outreach co-ordinator for Chilliwack Learning Society, launched the program earlier this year.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, one of our directors said she was running into seniors who were feeling very isolated. A lot of them were unable to go out to see friends or family. One, in particular, said that they really missed the children, and another person was commenting that, because schools and the libraries were closed, children really missed reading. I started to think, `Why can't this still happen? Just because they can't sit in the same room, now it's more important that they can somehow still connect.'” With the aid of the Raise-AReader literacy campaign, which is funded by donations from Vancouver Sun readers, Williams created Bookworm Friends. It's one of three Chilliwack Learning Society programs partly funded by RaiseA-Reader. Another is StoryWalks, where pages from a couple of kids' books were posted in March in the windows of downtown Chilliwack businesses and at Vedder Park at the Vedder River. The other is a support program for high-risk single mothers of young children. With the funds, the learning society purchases new, quality children's books for the families to read together.

“For me, the idea behind Bookworm Friends was more about mental health,” Williams said. “Literacy and learning is equally important, but reading became the vehicle to bring those two groups together. We didn't say, `Your goal is to teach these children to read.' Instead, it's about sharing your joy of reading with the child, and making literacy something that is a fun and warm, fuzzy part of their life.”

Different pairs of readers customize the experience, depending on their needs. One young reader had difficulty concentrating at times.

“She and her Bookworm Friend would talk a little bit, and try to read a couple of times,” Williams said. “She couldn't do it. Then next week the child would come back and the reset button was pushed and she was engaged. That building of comfort in the relationship would lead to some great things.”

For Reveley, a lifelong reader whose own taste tends toward contemporary fiction by the likes of Cormac McCarthy and Jhumpa Lahiri, the program has exposed her to some reading material she might not otherwise have encountered.

“What was that one about the giraffe?” she said with a laugh. “Giraffes Can't Dance. Oh gosh. We read it numerous times. He loves it so much that his mom bought it for him when he turned four. And Aliens Love Underpants. And superheroes, anything with superheroes. And pirates. He loves pirates.”

It turns out that their weekly Zoom sessions are as big a deal for her as they are for her book buddy.

“I thought this would be good for him. But it's a mutual thing. I really look forward to that time together once a week.”