PARKVILLE, Md. — When school lets out for summer, many students are eager for a break from the classroom but that doesn’t mean the learning has to stop. At Villa Cresta Elementary in Parkville, librarian Jennifer Hartman is making sure students stay engaged through the school’s annual Summer Book Swap.

In the final days of the academic year, Hartman transforms the school library into a mini bookstore, except everything is free. Each of the school’s 600 students gets to choose five books to take home, thanks to generous donations from the Maryland Book Bank and local families.

“This gives them a chance to pick what they're interested in. They're not being stuck with something they have to read for class,” Hartman explained.

The idea was inspired by a program Hartman saw when her own sons were in elementary school. She’s now brought it to life at Villa Cresta, with over 5,000 gently used books available for kids to browse and take home.

Hartman says the program wouldn’t be possible without the support of the community.

“We have a lot of families that are really supportive and bring in tote bins of books and scour yard sales,” she said.

Students are welcome to keep the books or bring them back in the fall to swap again.

“It’s something that gives the kids something to read over the summer because we don’t do book check-out for summer materials,” Hartman said. “And we have a lot of families that sometimes just can’t make it to the public library.”

The program is also designed to help combat the “summer slide”, a decline in reading and academic skills that can occur during the long break from school.

A study by the American Educational Research Journal, finds that students can lose about 20% of their reading skills and 27% of their math skills over the summer.

"I always joke with them too that one of my son's motivators for reading when he was little, he was playing video games where you needed to be able to read the screen to be able to move and he would get frustrated when he couldn't read so that was a huge motivator for him. I have to learn how to read better if I want to be able to do better in this game,” Hartman said.

The Villa Cresta Summer Book Swap is more than just a fun end-of-year activity but a community-driven effort to keep the love of reading alive.