NORTHUMBERLAND — First-graders at the Shikellamy School District’s Priestley Elementary School went home with a little gift on their last day of school — a new book.

The books were paid for through a nearly $1,400 grant from the UGI Corp., headquartered in Reading. The company maintains an annual corporate commitment to the Reading Is Fundamental program and through that funds 75 percent of local program needs.

On Thursday, UGI Corp. volunteers read to the first-graders from the Magic Tree House series. They read only a couple of chapters from the books to encourage the kids to read more during the summer, first-grade teacher Marilyn Lynch said.

She said the series is by far the most popular among that age group at the school. The series features a brother-and-sister team who travel to historical places using a magic tree house

Once the group reading was complete, numbers were drawn to allow the children to browse the book selection one at a time.

While their classmates waited impatiently, other children made a bee line to the Magic Tree House section, but those books were quickly picked over, much to the disappointment of some of the kids.

The UGI grant will lead to nine total distributions over the next three years, Lynch said.

“We at Priestley are very pro early-childhood literacy. That’s the greatest part of our program here at Priestley for the K-1 children,” she said. “We feel that the children have been totally immersed in literacy this year, and this is a continuation into the summer for them.”

UGI volunteers also brought book plates with them, so each child went home with a book with his or her name written inside the front cover.

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