Students in a graduate course on literacy taught by Diane Greene have provided individually bound, one-of-a-kind volumes to Community Counseling Services of Columbus.

Titled "Changing Lives through Books," the class service project includes the works of more than 20 students. With topics ranging from death to drug abuse, the stories are drawn from research and the students' life experiences.

Their accounts can be used in bibliotherapy—the process of using books to help facilitate discussion and problem solving.

"Bibliotherapy is based on the theory that children experiencing trauma in their lives can find peaceful ways to resolve their conflicts through age-appropriate literature," said Greene, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education.

She and Francis J. Baird, Lowndes County administrator of the counseling agency, collaborated on the initiative.