By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – It may have been Halloween, but some Meadow View Elementary School students said it felt like a different holiday in the school’s library.

“They’re so excited. One girl even told me it feels like Christmas morning,” MVES library media specialist Christina Tomlin said on Oct. 31 as about 20 students pored over stacks of books spread throughout the library. “We’re calling today ‘The perfect treat’ to fit in with the theme of the day.”

Several weeks ago, the school received a grant from the nonprofit group First Book, which allowed Meadow View to distribute nearly 1,900 books to its students. Tomlin applied for the grant, which is open to Title 1 schools with a significant number of students on the free and reduced-price lunch program.

After the school received the grant, Tomlin’s mother-in-law, Peggy Tomlin, recruited two of her friends to drive to Montgomery to pick up the three carloads of books.

“They had to use three cars to get them here, just because they weighed so much,” Christina Tomlin said with a laugh. “We are so thankful to her.”

Throughout the day on Oct. 31, groups of students took turns browsing through the donated books spread out on the library’s tables as they chose one to take home with them.

“This is yours forever. You can write your name in it and take it home and enjoy it,” Christina Tomlin told the kids. “We have all kinds of books in here today. Do you have to pay for them? No!”

The books ran a gamut of subjects from Marvel super heroes to variations of “The Night Before Christmas.” Kids also got to choose books from the “Phineas and Ferb” and Iron Man series.

To celebrate the day, several MVES classes also dressed up as their favorite book characters and paraded down the hallway as their classmates cheered them on.

“Every single child in the school will get a free book today,” Christina Tomlin said.