A double-decker bus has been converted into a school library in memory of a five-year-old student.
Lyla Blue Glennen was in Year 1 at Bourn Primary Academy in Cambridgeshire when she died of a brain haemorrhage in 2021.
“We really wanted something to commemorate them with and this project seemed like the perfect fit,” said Headmaster Laura Latham.
When the school year begins, students can use the bus library.
Books have been donated from around the world and Ms Latham said the children “can’t wait” to choose from the “amazing books” they have.
The idea for the project came from Lyla’s teacher, Judith Balls, who was frustrated that the school only had a small non-fiction area in a corridor and no library room.
Ms Balls convinced a local bus company to donate a former London bus, and the school and the local community set about converting it.
“It was a great privilege for me to have Lyla in my class and we missed her terribly when she passed, but I know she would be really happy that we made it through,” she said.
Simone Glennen, Lyla’s mother, contributed design ideas for the bus and helped with the cleaning and painting.
She said the bus library meant “the world” to the family.
“It’s the icing on the cake of all the things the school has done to help us,” she said.
Lyla’s younger brother, Heath, is about to begin his freshman year at the school.
Ms Glennen said the bus library meant he could “always have a part of his sister with him at school”.
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