Heather Cistola had a big birthday party Saturday, and her friends didn’t bring her any presents.

Instead, they all brought what 8-year-old Heather and her family had requested: children’s books to be donated for use in community centers, day-care centers and waiting rooms of low-income health-care clinics. The party — to which Heather invited the entire third grade at Prairie Park School — will benefit a community book drive designed to help build children’s literacy skills.

“I just think it’s really nice, and it’s really fun to do,” said Heather, who just started third grade and likes to read Amelia Bedelia books. “I just like to be fair and stuff.”

“Some people don’t have books,” added Heather’s classmate Kylee Lutze, who likes to read long books with chapters. She brought a book about feeling sick and “a cat book.”

Under a hot sun in the family’s back yard, dozens of third-graders bounced in an inflatable castle, slurped snow cones and pasted temporary tattoos on their skin. The birthday girl wore a blue balloon twisted into the shape of a flower in her hair, and more than 150 books sat in collection boxes at the edge of the yard.

Each year since she was 3, Heather’s mother, Alyson Cistola, offered her the choice of having a small, traditional birthday party — with gifts for her — or a bigger blowout with charity donations. She prefers the blowout, said Cistola, a reading teacher at Broken Arrow School.

When they were shopping for causes this year, they called Lawrence-Douglas County Promise, a youth-oriented agency. They wound up talking with Mary Olive Thompson, a Kansas University graduate who’s assigned to the agency through the federal AmeriCorps program.

Thompson told them she was getting ready to start a book drive she calls “Why Wait to Read?” The drive — which features a logo drawn by Thompson of a chicken on a stack of books instead of eggs — will gather new and used children’s books for agencies such as the Ballard Community Center, Boys & Girls Club and Douglas County Dental Clinic.

Thompson’s goal is to start reading programs at the agencies after she gathers the books.

Heather Cistola, Lawrence, celebrated her 8th birthday Saturday by asking her party guests to bring a book for donation instead of a gift. Heather, center, is pictured Saturday with her friends, from left, Sara Scherschligt, Ashley Pederson, Max Jackson, Shelby Steichen and Addison Ellis. The girls are all 8 years old.

The cause sounded good to the Cistolas, in part because partygoers could bring used books if they didn’t want to buy or couldn’t afford new ones. They attached a book-drive flier to the party invitation.

“This was all their work,” said Thompson, who came to the party.