MOUNT DESERT ISLAND — You can’t turn on the radio without hearing Meghan Trainor's catchy song All About That Bass over the airwaves these days. The song, a retro send-up on body positivity, got Mount Desert Island High School’s Library Media Specialist Davonne Pappas thinking. Instead of bringing booty back, why not bring reading back? (Click the video to see the tribute song.)

She and her daughter Ella started recrafting the lyrics to Trainor’s song with the idea of focusing on books and libraries. She then enlisted the help of a colleague Jeff Zamen, film class teacher to collaborate on the video.

“Finally, I wanted a student who was a really good alto singer, but who also had a love of books, so I got in touch with the band and chorus teachers and we decided on a student, Mary Ellen Sharp, a junior,” she said. “She comes into the library all the time.

“We wanted to mirror the Megan Trainor video with a similar feel with fast cutaways and some dancing. We wanted to have the same kind of feeling, but a different message.”

The video was shot earlier this fall with Sharp doing all of the vocals, layering in all of the harmonies and the background “doo wops” as well.

Other MDI students joined as backup dancers and “singers.”

When the video debuted on YouTube Nov. 5, Pappas said: “It’s really amazing the response we’ve gotten. We had no idea that it would be as popular as it has been, up to 29,000 views on YouTube. And it’s very cool, the kids all were so excited about how much people have paid attention to it.”

The video is not only well executed and dominated by Sharp’s strong vocals, but it’s also a great message all around. Here you have Maine kids in normal everyday clothing espousing their love of reading traditional media at a time when studies have indicated that children and young adults read significantly less than in the past.

A 2007 update to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) study,To Read or Not to Read, found that "Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of nonreaders doubled over a 20-year period, from 19 percent in 1984 to nine percent in 2004.”

As Sharp is portrayed holding about 10 books she sings: “I’m bringing reading back. Go on and check out a gigantic stack. No, I’m not joking, you may think it’s smack, but I’m here to tell you, every book is an adventure, makes you never want to stop.”

Simply awesome.

A fan of the video started a playlist for other schools who were doing their version of an “All About The Books” tribute, which you can see here.

Related links:

• All About That Bass cover by Postmodern Jukebox

• Jimmy Fallon, Meghan Trainor and The Roots Sing All About That Bass (with classroom Instruments)

• All About That Bass - Parody - Laughing Moms by Alisha found Eden

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com