06 April 2007

Bookmobile!

Whoa! Major nostalgia hit for Mama today. Since it is spring break for the public schools, we decided to skip the branch library we usually go to and check out the county bookmobile. The branch we go to has a very small children's section (heck, the whole library is pretty small) and more than one other kid there makes it completely chaotic, so I try to avoid it when school is out. The bookmobile stops at local rec center/city hall (where we used to go to Thursday story time) from 12-1 on Friday. That's our regular library time anyway and when the weather is nicer, we can probably walk to the bookmobile and then walk over to "Keys Park." It will be a longish hike, but with the wagon, it should be manageable and great for pooping out the kidlings.

Anyway, the bookmobile was a kick...took me right back at least 25 years ago to the city library bookmobile that used to stop at the elementary schools once a week (OMG. It is NOT possible that I can reminisce about something more than 25 years ago, is it??). Our reading classes would take turns trooping out to look around and check out books if we had a city card. Of course, its pretty hard to make one bookmobile look all that different from another. Just strip out all the bus stuff and put bookshelves on the walls. The desk goes right behind the driver's seat (which swivels between driving position and librarian position). It's not like it is that big so you can get creative with the layout!

They had coloring sheets for the kids to take home, but no crayons (obviously, since there isn't a place to sit down and color), which distressed Bean no end. All the way out and all the way home, I had to keep reassuring Bean that we would get our crayons out at home. The pictures were cute, springy hatching chicks...which reminds me that it is time for another Bean vocabulary lesson. Today's lesson is "animals." Bean does the same thing as Bug used to do and uses the animal sound to identify some of the animals. I'm guess that the animal sounds are just that much easier for little people to pronounce than some of the complicated names.

peep-peep - chicken
hee - horse (or anything horselike, e.g., zebras, donkeys, etc.)
eh-eh - monkey
bah - sheep
kih-ee - kitty
gog-ee - doggy
buh-ee - bunny
wah-oo - whale or any fish
rap - giraffe
dut - duck
Oh, and Ms. K...I may have job applicant for you. Last night, Kitty Daddy was teaching Bug how to pronounce "Vesiculobullous allergic contact dermatitis," he has a very studly looking chest (if you like them cute and skinny), and is young enough not to make Mr. K feel threatened. I would recommend payment by Nekkid Ho rather than Boozy Ho because of said age thing...

5 comments:

knottykitty said...

Ooooh, ooooh, I remember the bookmobile! Except it was,...um...about 40 years ago! Yikes! I loved when that bus used to pull up at school, because otherwise, it was about a 4-mile bike ride to the nearest library, and my school was across the street from my house! :p

Anonymous said...

Great to see you have fond memories of bookmobiles, and that you get to use one in the present! I actually work on one here in Maryland (have for over 25 years) and it's a blast on my side of the desk, too.

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, bookmobiles...my bookmobile memories go back more than 50 years! But I do remember them with great fondness. Your mention of bookmobiles made me go to our county library system to see if we have them, and this is waht I found:

"Bookmobile service continued until 1997, when the service was replaced with the more cost-efficient van and lobby services."

So sad...however, I'm glad your little kidlings will have bookmobile memories. I'll bet Bug was fascinated by the library in the motor vehicle.

Marianne said...

Oh....Bookmobiles....I can still 'smell' it..mercy, that was a looooong time ago, ok, not quite 50 years but more than 40 for certain...it would actually come to our street and was just about the most exciting thing to happen (yeah, I know, kind of sad in a way). How cool is that!

Thanks for stopping by today.
I'm still giggling about 'Nekkid Ho as opposed to Boozy Ho for Bug..

Anonymous said...

We didn't have bookmobiles in podunksville. The closest we ever came was the occasional book fair.

We have been having to avoid some places due to field trips and the like here. Hopefully things will warm up and we can just escape to the woods, soon.