Last Wednesday, October 19th, RMHS’s Bookbinders Club went on a field trip to John Jay elementary school to distribute the books that they created last school year. Bookbinders creates dual-language books in English and Spanish for kindergarten and first graders. The club writes, illustrates, and produces the books themselves. Last year, they made 110 books to be given out to elementary schoolers to take home.

Sophomore Ira Camacho, Bookbinders member and part of the teaching pathway at RMHS, enjoyed the field trip. 

“Getting to go to this school was great! I had so much fun and you could see how excited these kids were to see these books and the fact they got to keep them made them even more happy,” Camacho said. 

Jennifer Ventimiglia, John Jay Elementary principal, agreed. Ventimiglia said that the Bookbinders would “always be welcome back with more books!” 

The five and six-year-olds who received books of their own seemed to share the sentiment. They were very excited, engaging with the high schoolers and getting enthusiastic about the drawings of butterflies and soccer players provided in the books.

“We’re looking forward to doing this again at the end of the year. We’re hoping to expand our reach to more elementary schools, and we’ve been writing second grade-books in addition to our kindergarten and first ones,” said sophomore Mika Carreon.