By Leslie Brown

For The Beachcomber

The Vashon Reads Bookmobile made a stop at Vashon Cohousing on Saturday, with volunteer Jenni Wilke behind the wheel.

Wilke, clad in a red jumpsuit, was there to provide books to the Stormer/Richards household, and within minutes of her arrival, Ruby Richards, 8, and her mother Bethany Stormer showed up to exchange the books they had checked out when the bookmobile visited last month and to pick up some new titles. Ruby got the book, The Princess in Black, by Shannon and Dean Hale. She chose the book after Wilke recommended it to her. “I liked the first one in the series,” Ruby said.

The Vashon Reads Bookmobile made its debut at the Strawberry Festival this summer. The small red van is a retired fire truck from Japan, outfitted with wooden shelves sporting rows of children’s books and a rooftop loudspeaker that plays jingles written by islander Tyrel Stendahl. Vashon Reads, the nonprofit behind the effort, currently has 300 titles and funds to purchase another 300 books, Wilke said.

Wilke, one of a handful of volunteers who drives the bookmobile on Saturdays, said she enjoys it immensely. A bookmobile, she said, has been “a lifelong dream. I just can’t imagine anything better than bringing books to people.”

For more information or to sign up to have the bookmobile visit your neighborhood, visit vashonreads.org.