Junior aviation buffs and cousins Alex and Bryce Raimondo are sharing their passion for books and biplanes with a new donation to the Mattapoisett Library.

Volunteers Jennifer Zieske and Jeanne McCullough created the original family literacy kits a few years ago, with each backpack filled with books, activities, toy models and other items along a theme.

Alex, 10, and Bryce, 5, checked out the truck-themed backpack several months ago and found that one of the trucks was missing. They wanted to replace it, but with the help of Bryce’s mother (Alex’s aunt), Jessica Raimondo, the kids decided a better idea would be to make a new backpack.

“They asked me why we didn’t have one of our bags on aviation,” said children’s librarian Linda Burke. “We just hadn’t had time to.”

It was the beginning of summer at the time, and with the summer reading program about to take off, Burke was happy to have the boys take on the project.

“Every time they came in they were taking out another stack of books on aviation so they could find just the right ones,” she said.

The family, who lives in Fairhaven, frequently visits the library and the backpacks are one of the boys’ favorite items to check out. They checked out a few more for reference and got to work.

The undertaking was a bit more than Alex, a fourth grade student, was expecting, but he said he still had a good time.

“At first it sounded easy, and then when we tried it was a little bit harder because we had to read all of the books, but it worked out,” he said.

The boys figured out which books on aviation they wanted to include in the backpack (each has five titles), and they raised the money to purchase them.

“I did a bunch of jobs,” said Alex. “I cleaned my grammy’s house, mostly.”

They also collected soda cans and bottles to redeem.

“We paid for the books and we had five dollars left,” Alex said.

In addition to books, the kids included six toy airplanes in the kit, a few from their own collection. They came up with fun activities for other families to do such as make an airplane out of bananas for the body, graham crackers for the wings and tail and cheerios for the windows, but they included a note saying each person could choose their own building materials. The boys also suggested an outing to the New Bedford Airport where there is an airplane-themed playground.

The aviation backpack is finished and ready to be checked out, and Alex and Bryce already have their next theme in mind: baseball. That may be some time down the road as Alex is also saving for a puppy.

Burke said she’s proud of the kids for taking initiative, and may have discovered Alex’s future career.

“I think he’s going to be a research librarian after all of this.”