Leaving for Westfalia with a hundred or two pounds. Drive two hundred kilometers. Turning off the engine of “La Grande”, a 1991 West, next to the snack bar in one of those villages in Quebec where there are “a lot more four-wheelers than books. » Switch off the engine. Open the doors wide, take out the pennants and the books. Create an ephemeral reading corner for a day, in those places where the book goes little, goes badly. Such will be the summer of Catherine Lapointe, driver of La Grande, and Virginie Martel, around the Limier voyageur project.
“This dream of books, in the heart of summer, is my civic project; It is I, Catherine, who believe in reading, in the importance of spreading reading for pleasure and in the importance of being immersed in reading since childhood. A second-year teacher in the Quebec City region, Catherine Lapointe will be back on the road with her Literary Caravan, her books, her paddling pool-for-babies-for-babies, for a third summer.
“It broke my heart to close my class in June and leave my 500 books there. » Mme Lapointe paid three-quarters of it out of pocket, and the rest came from flea markets or donations following the media coverage of his project. In the summer, she transforms them into paperbacks, motorhome books, travel books.
And his project is making little people, since Virginie Martel, professor at the University of Quebec in Rimouski, was directly inspired by it to think up, with the support of her university, the Bloodhound traveler. Theretwist by Mme Hammer? Particularly affect underprivileged rural areas of Quebec.
The two women now work together. To hit the road for the first time this summer, Virginie Martel acquired a 1989 Vanagon Volsk that she named Jack — in honor of author Jacques Poulin. “The mechanics on this old truck still worries me…” She fills it from the media library with 5,000 documents, with a hundred illustrated books at a time, especially from Quebec.
“Between Lévis and Rimouski, there is this whole series of cappuccino villages, as I call them, these pretty villages along the river,” explained Ms.me Martel during his presentation of the project at the 90e Acfas Congress, at the University of Montreal, on May 11.
“But from there, go inland, just six kilometers, and you will start to see it, the misery of Quebec”, said the specialist in education and didactics of reading comprehension. Fragile economic vitality, low literacy and scarcity of institutions like public libraries then intersect.
City books and country rats
“There are a lot of book offers in urban areas, but not in rural areas. The kilometers are many, several places are really hard to reach. “It’s not always easy, far from it,” explained Mr.me Hammer then. I told the most beautiful anecdotes, but sometimes people don’t want to know anything about books. »
She knows that the human relationship is important and must remain at the heart of the exchanges to circumvent resistance. Like the materiality of the good old paper book. An example ? For toddlers, the swimming pool plastic filled with albums, in which the little ones can crawl, and which they can bite, eat, throw.
“Dads and boys, we have them with the West, says Mme Hammer smiling. They want to come and sit behind the wheel, test the seat or pretend to drive. Yes, we allow them. We put lots of books on the dashboard, and we end up talking to them about it. »
To make a real difference, it takes frequency
“I once made a game where I invited the children to jump with both feet from book to book, because they weren’t at all interested in reading. We played, there are blankets that were torn off, it took hours. At the end, I had one, two or three who sat down and began to read. »
Permit to read, forbidden to park
For meme Martel, it was important to come up with a project that would take place completely outside of the school network. “To reach students for whom reading is synonymous with school failure, misunderstanding, it has to happen completely elsewhere and otherwise. »
Catherine Lapointe emphasizes how much her association with Mme Martel, after two years of quite a solo Literary Caravan, is making a difference. “The steps are not easy to obtain a permit, for a one-day project that depends a lot on the weather. In Quebec, you have to make a request forty days in advance, otherwise you risk fines. If it rains, on D-day, it has to be done again. »
Because the City considers that Catherine Lapointe, by letting people come and read her books around her van, offers a service. “If I associate myself with organizations”, such as Le Limier voyageur by Mme Martel, De mots et de craie or the Dauphine, “it’s much simpler. Otherwise, I go to private land. »
But for this project to be successful, it must be part of a network. “You have to come back, see people again. Catherine Lapointe confirms. “We have a strong vision, but yes, for the moment it is a romantic vision. It would take a whole social organization that can support this kind of action. There, we often have the impression that we are all alone, two women who pay for the truck and gasoline out of their pockets and who give their time to carry this idea that reading for pleasure can be a trigger “of a literacy course.
“To make a real difference, it takes frequency,” she continues. Reading must become a ritual, the people we reach develop, over time, an identity as a reader that is different from that of another. And to develop that, you have to bathe in reading. »
Virginie Martel confirms that as it stands, the project carries a magic, but is not sufficient, even incomplete. “It’s true that at best, it’s a spark of reading that we sow, but which will really be used for what? Maybe to a person? You need a network, partners, follow-up,” she concedes. “I still have a lot of work to do. I know it,” she concludes, with a lot of excitement in her voice.