In a day and age when kids put coins and bills into vending machines and get nothing but Everlasting Gobsmackers and that blue juice that looks like windshield washer fluid in return, Ms Dwyer has set it up so that students get books, rather than crappy sweet food and drink, out of the moneygrabbers.
She says, "It's been a success. It has created excitement and joy around reading and anything that encourages reading is a win in our book."
Actually, Ms Dwyer told "Good Morning America" that Susan Caldwell, the school's media specialist, came up with the idea to begin with.
The school rounded up books from Scholastic Book Fair points, parent donations, and purchases by other school staff.
Umatilla students, kindergarten through 5th grade, have the choice of spending their own allowance money on books or earning special "Bulldog Bucks" tokens that the machine takes like money. One can earn some "Bulldog Bucks" for doing some act of kindness, or working hard on an assignment.
"It would be wonderful if we can partner with local businesses to donate more books because it's been a hit," Ms Caldwell, in full hint-dropping mode, told "GMA."
Already, a local church donated another machine, so that there can be one machine stocked with books for kids in kindergarten through 2nd grade, and another for the upper grades.
As a lifelong reader, I have to sympathize with parents who struggle to get their children to read. Maybe the answer is to make them equate reading a book with winning a prize.
Because reading and gaining knowledge is the greatest prize of all!
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