The Busload of Books Research Team Takes On 2026 and Phase 3 of BoB!

By Emmie Meeks 

Welcome back to the Busload of Books Blog! After a (not-so-brief) hiatus from the blog, we are back with some exciting new developments.  

Image courtesy of Robbi & Matthew

We have a new member of the research team, Lexi, so be on the lookout for her introductory post coming soon! I have returned to the team from my student teaching internship, older and (maybe) wiser. You can expect to see an update on my experience in the classroom and how I translated my BoB skills to the real world! 

Most of our team’s work in the fall was cleaning and analyzing existing data, packing boxes for new visits, and entering data from the last couple of visits during the spring, and our new visits from the fall!  

Robbi and Matthew completed four school visits during the fall, three in-person and one virtual. All four chose to participate in our research project! So far this semester, Robbi and Matthew have done two virtual visits, with four more (two virtual and two in-person) on the books! 

Our team is working hard to get all of the paper surveys entered so that Dr. Garcia can work his analytical magic!  

In other exciting news, we sat down with Robbi and Matthew a couple weeks ago to talk about Phase 3 of the tour and research, their new middle grade series, and the future of the research project. As always, having Robbi and Matthew on campus was such a treat!  

Robbi and Matthew are continuing to brainstorm how to best reach more students and provide opportunities to underserved communities. We won’t give too much away, but their ideas sound awesome, and we can’t wait to see what their future of the tour holds.  

First Book has extended their partnership with Robbi and Matthew to continue providing access to free books during book giveaway visits for the next two years! First Book is also helping to facilitate Title I school interest in the BoB project, and has reached out to nearly 6,000 Title I schools to invite them to apply for the next cohort of the tour. 

10 schools will receive all-school book giveaways, and First Book is sponsoring a six-book box for 50 more applicants. This means even more books in the hands of students across the country! A huge thank you to First Book for helping keep the tour and our research project alive! 

Be on the lookout for our updates about Lexi, myself, and our research endeavors this spring!