A local pediatrician is doing his part to make sure children in the community are provided with an opportunity to start reading at a young age.

Dr. Lotfi Bashir, a physician at Selma Pediatrics, saw a need at his office and took it upon himself to provide free books to children.

In 2013, Bashir wrote his first book “The Adventures of Petey Pots and Pans: Facing the Bully” which told the story of his personal pet Chihuahua’s, Petey Pots and Pans and Ducky Bobby. Through the book, Bashir was able to talk about the issue of bullying in the school system.

“The book intended to give a message for young children on how to deal with the bullying. It just gives children a little perspective on one of the ways that they can handle the bullying that sometimes can happen on a daily basis in school,” Bashir said. “Bullying is very pervasive in our schools, but it is an issue that most of the time is ignored. When it comes to bullying, we just need to have a way for children to deal with it and what to do about it.”

Bashir said the idea of writing the book came to him after his office implemented the program “Reach Out and Give.”

“The whole idea of the … program was to encourage reading to children at a very young age. It was intended to encourage physicians, doctors at their offices to give out free books to children during their wellness checkup,” Bashir said. “Due to lack of funding, the ‘Reach Out and Read’ program was not able to provide a supply of free books. So all of the sudden we were left out with no books for the children. That’s why I decided to write my own book and give it to the children for free when they come for their wellness checkup and vaccines.”

In 2014, Bashir wrote another book, “The Adventures of Petey Pots and Pans: My Name is Not A Game.”

In this book, Bashir focused on the problem of bullying through name-calling and the struggle that some children go through in school.

“A lot of people, children especially, get teased about their names and sometimes their schooling can suffer because children are so worried or they don’t like their names or people call them name or they just make fun of their names,” Bashir said.

“Also this book inspires children to think about a way to think differently about their names. Of course they cannot change their name, but the way they perceive the bullying because of their name can affect their learning.”

The two picture books are handed out to children that go to Selma Pediatrics for their wellness check-up and vaccines, but they are also available on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.