Matthew Posts
In Which the Busload of Books Tour Begins

In Which the Busload of Books Tour Begins

After twelve years of dreaming and three years of planning and and more than a thousand generous contributors chipping in to make it possible, we’re hitting the road today with 25,000 books to give away and 25,000 miles to drive. (There’s a symmetry to it.) We’ve...

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In Which We Set Out to Prove Wonder Really is Everywhere

In Which We Set Out to Prove Wonder Really is Everywhere

For the pre-K-1st graders we meet on the Tour, we’ll be giving away a copy of Everywhere, Wonder, our picture about the importance of noticing and appreciating the beautiful and interesting things to be found wherever we go. The point of our school presentation for...

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One Country: Three Questions

One Country: Three Questions

Friends, perhaps you can help us with something. One of the great opportunities our family will have on the Busload of Books Tour is talking to people all over the country—getting to know them and picking their brains if we care to. We purposefully selected schools...

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The Busload of Books Tour is a year-long project to promote literacy and raise awareness of the challenges facing our nation’s public schools.

Author/illustrator duo Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr (that’s us) and our four kids will spend the 2022-2023 school year traveling the country in a school bus/tiny home, visiting Title I schools in all 50 states (plus DC), and giving away 25,000 hardcover books to students and teachers from underserved communities.

As we travel, we will be blogging, vlogging and posting frequently to social media. All of our content will be appropriate for bringing families and students along on our ultimate road trip.

The latest on Instagram:

The Daily Minute: 3.30.23
In which Matthew demonstrates the transitive power of the crank crevice.

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Here’s a photo I should have posted a month ago, the mural as it stood on March 1.
 
I’ve been dragging my feet for a number of reasons. Long and tiring days. The (self-imposed) pressure to say something meaningful and conclusive). The math involved to see how many miles we’d travled in February.
 
But mostly because March 1 marked six months since we left home. Which meant our adventure was more than halfway done. Which was not something I wanted to admit.
 
This trip has been the greatest six months of my life, and it’s hard to imagine anything that happens hereafter measuring up.  
 
I’m already nostalgic for September when we were just getting started. I’m already nostalgic for yesterday.
 
This photo is badly outdated, but I’m putting it here for the sake of posterity. I don’t have the energy to process our travels on a day-by-day basis, so these posts will be the record I’ll return to as I try to make sense of all this once we’re sitting still again.
 
Breadcrumbs in the woods, leading me backward to the place and the moment we started.
 
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In which Robbi wants you to know we are often to be found doing nothing in empty, windswept places.

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Whoever you are, take your seat on the bus!

Our adventure is your adventure. Our country is your country, too. Follow along with us!