Dec. 2, 2025
What Happens When Children Choose Their Own Books
A gym full of kids, a stack of fresh books, and a mascot who can turn a story into a celebration—this is how reading becomes a lifelong habit. We sit down with Margaret Jackson of Cocky’s Reading Express to explore how a joyful, high-energy model brings literacy to Title I schools across all 46 South Carolina counties, powered by the University of South Carolina’s iSchool.
Website: spotlight4success.com
00:00 - Welcome And Guest Intro
00:31 - What The iSchool Does
00:47 - Role With Cocky’s Reading Express
01:10 - Defining Cocky’s Reading Express
01:46 - Free Books And Program Impact
02:14 - Margaret’s Path In Literacy Outreach
02:36 - Where To Learn More
02:49 - History And Mission
03:22 - Book Choice And Little Free Libraries
03:58 - Message To Librarians And Closing
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I'm Devin Pintoza, your host.
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We are here in Columbia, South Carolina at the South Carolina Librarians Association.
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We are so happy to have with us today.
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This is Margaret Jackson.
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Margaret, nice to see you.
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Hey, it's great to be here.
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And Margaret joins us from Cocky's Reading Express.
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You got it right.
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Okay, great.
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And can you tell us a bit about uh what you're doing here at the conference at SCLA?
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Yeah, so I was just sitting at the University of South Carolina's iSchool booth, and so what we do is we train many of the librarians in the state.
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So if you want an MLIS, which is a master's in library and information science degree, you're gonna come to us.
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Wow.
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Yes.
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But I was there uh as the coordinator for Cocky's Reading Express.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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And so what kind of uh uh so does does uh Cocky's Reading Express is this go around to a lot of different conferences?
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Uh no, we actually don't we don't travel to different conferences, but since we're part of the iSchool, we are saying hello to many of our librarian friends.
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Oh, okay.
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Sounds like a good idea.
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Yes.
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And uh so uh what how did you get involved with Cocky's Reading Express?
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Yeah, so uh Cocky's Reading Express, let me just tell you a little bit about what it is so that you can understand how I got involved.
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Oh, it sounds good.
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It's uh uh it's the university's literacy outreach initiative.
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Okay.
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So what we do is we travel around to all 46 counties in South Carolina and we visit Title I elementary schools.
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So we do high-energy storytime programming, singing, dancing, story times um for all the students, pre-K through fifth grade, and then um this is all alongside our mascot cocky.
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Okay.
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Uh and then every single kid gets to pick a book to take home to keep forever.
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And so yeah, yeah, I think it's a wonderful program.
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Yeah, so how I got involved was um I was uh the director of programs at Reading is Fundamental Pittsburgh, and I ran bookmobile programs and services.
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And uh so I really focused on literacy outreach.
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So it's a natural transition.
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Wow, that's great.
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So uh, and I'm looking at the pictures here.
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This is great.
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So you definitely want to check out the pictures.
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Um can you tell us the website?
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Yes, please visit www.cockiesreading express.org.
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Okay, that there you go.
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So that's a great place to get more information.
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But um, can you tell us a bit more about the organization?
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Um so we've been in business for 20 years.
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Um we first started in 2005.
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We were a student government initiative.
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So uh they thought that they were just gonna visit a few schools over winter break, and then uh the the program stuck.
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Uh and we got our own mascot.
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Um, I mean, cocky is the university's mascot, but we have our own cocky who travels around with us, uh, just sharing a love of reading.
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And that's really our goal.
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Uh we want to foster a love of reading and increase access to high-quality, high-interest books.
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So uh it's a self-selection model.
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Kids are getting to pick the book that they really want.
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And then we also install little free libraries at the schools to kind of expand our reach uh beyond our initial visit.
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My gosh, that is just wonderful.
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Yeah, it's a lot of fun too.
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That I bet it sounds like a sounds like a blast.
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Um uh, do you have a message you'd like to share with the SCLA community?
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Um, I think the most important thing to remember is that kids love to have fun, and as adults, we can really create magical experiences for kids.
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And librarians are doing that every single day.
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So we love our South Carolina librarians, and we're really happy to be a part of the South Carolina librarian family.
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Wow, thank you so much.
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That was uh very energetic, love that.
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Uh uh, this is uh once again Margaret Jackson uh with Cocky's Reading Express, and we look forward to hearing more about what's gonna go on uh with your organization over the next year.
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Awesome, thank you.
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Thank you.
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Bye bye.
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