DENTON, Texas—Preschooler Briseyda Cervantes yanked back a page of the brightly colored book, revealing yet another insatiable monster demanding food.

The book seemed to start innocently enough, but the moaning and groaning from one little monster under a boy’s bed had grown to 10 monsters who enjoyed toppling over bowls of spaghetti and sliding down banisters—anything to keep awake the boy who was supposed to be sleeping.

As Briseyda, 3, clutched a pillow on her lap anticipating the next page, her volunteer bilingual reader, Molly Young, asked her to count up the monsters, “Puedes contarlos?”

Young is one of about 37 University of North Texas student volunteers who read to children through the literacy project of the Success for Life Through Reading program this semester, said George Morrison, an early childhood education professor at UNT.

The program helps acquaint children with good reading material, he said.

One of those books, “Un Esperpento Hambriento,” or One Hungry Monster, seemed to help settle the overactive preschoolers as they counted monsters and listened to Young speak in a Dr. Seuss-like rhythm.

Young reads aloud to students on a one-on-one basis and said she has seen a difference in the preschoolers she has worked with over the last semester she has volunteered.

The program is an important link in that chain, she said, because some of the students do not have good books at home.

But the chain could break with funds for books dwindling as the year comes to a close.

The program does not have enough books to finish out the school year for 622 kids, said Valerie Gallardo, program coordinator with the university’s College of Public Affairs and Community Services.

Now that the number of children from low-income families has nearly doubled from earlier this year when 1,026 books were given out, the need for good literature continues to strain the organization’s supply.

And now, Gallardo said, she is appealing to the community, hoping that book and monetary donations will help spread literacy at a young age.