STARKVILLE – An appropriately animated Shaina Kemp-Jefferson dazzled her young audience as she read aloud book after book Saturday inside the Travis Outlaw Center’s gym at the Starkville Sportsplex.

Groups of a dozen or more children kept their eyes glued to her readings of “The Couch Potato” and “The Big Cheese,” with different kids filtering in and out between books.

By the time Kemp-Jefferson started reading her last book, Marcus Pfister’s “The Rainbow Fish,” her audience had dwindled to two. But Deborah Inkoom, 7, and her sister Arabella, 5, were totally enthralled.

Sparking that reaction is precisely why Kemp-Jefferson, a fourth-grade teacher at Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary, volunteered for a shift in the reading corner at Starkville Junior Auxiliary’s Spring 2025 Reading Railroad.

“I find joy in getting to see these kids get lost in a story,” she said, “… and introducing new readers to the love of reading.”

The event, in its fifth year, drew more than 100 children to the Sportsplex, where they could pick out free books to take home, listen to stories in the reading corner, make crafts and pick up snacks. They could also sign up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which sends an age-appropriate book to children’s homes each month.

“(The mission is) to support childhood literacy,” Starkville Junior Auxiliary President Maggie Frierson said. “A lot of children don’t have books at home, and this is a way to get books into the home.”

Books sat on tables sorted by age range, from infant- up to adult-level, all of which were either purchased through a Reading 2 Succeed grant or donated through JA book drives, third-year Reading Railroad project chair Mary Mitchell Hill said. Some books were new; others, gently used.

“Because I teach older (elementary) students, I’ve realized the importance of starting as young as you can with making sure children have books, so by the time they are in third and fourth grade, they have that solid foundation,” said Hill, also a fourth-grade teacher at Henderson Ward Stewart.

Dalia Smith, 9, was hunting for something at the chapter book table as her father Nick Smith and 2-year-old sister Hedi waited nearby. She settled on “The Bad Guys” by Aaron Blabey.

“I watched the movie,” she said of the 2022 book-based film of the same name. “I know the book will be a little different.”

“Different” is one of the reasons Godfred Inkoom brought his daughters Saturday to the Sportsplex.

Originally from Ghana, Godfred came to Starkville in 2011. His home is full of books, he said, but most are “old stories.”

“We came here to get some new ideas,” he said.

If their interest in “The Rainbow Fish” is any indication, sharing their shine with others is an idea the Inkoom girls won’t soon forget.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.