The Bookmobile- Part 1

The Bus Itself

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Funny how memories are. I was ready to write a post about a game I used to play with my brother and sister called, impromptu stories, and somehow, I ended up dreaming about the Bookmobile and writing 5 posts on the subject. geesh.

This bus came to our school once a month. It would pull up, park by the school, open the doors, and wait for us to invade it.

It looked like a normal school bus except it was blue. No creative words on it, just "BOOKMOBILE". No need to say more. There was nothing fancy about it, which is what led me to believe that all magical things come in disguise. So pay attention.

I actually found out in my research, that travelling libraries started in Saskatchewan in 1914. Nothing like the Bookmobile, just a bunch of crates, but cool just the same.
  
My paradise was a bus of books.

If you've never seen a bus of books, I can't even explain this to you properly. Just imagine paradise, well, my paradise, I really don't know what yours looks like.

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I searched for photos, but the recent ones are a little different, kinda modernized. The one I remember was one aisle with no pullouts. Just plain wooden shelves with books. More books than a child can dream of. There's just no way to capture the smells, the sounds of children squealing at their finds, the screaming stories, the urge to plop down in the middle of that single aisle and bask in the wonder of it. Books.



Did any of you have this wonderful bus come through your town?What did yours look like?

7 comments:

writing and living by Richard P Hughes said...

No such thing where I grew up. Or, if there was, I didn't notice it. I wasn't interested in reading books until I was a high school student.

Samantha Sotto said...

Never had the pleasure. We did have this dock on our shores recently, though :) http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/148711/floating-bookstore-back-in-manila

Vicki Tremper said...

I LOVED the bookmobile when I was in elementary school. I remember it being more of a van than a bus, but a really big van, and I think it was white. And it only came once a schoolyear (maybe twice), so it was a big deal.

Thanks for the walk down the bus route.

Tanya Reimer said...

Oh Richard, even the high school students loved it, but that's for another post!

Wow Samantha, I went to the link not sure what to expect. That is so flipping cool!

Oh Vicki that's fun! I wonder why it didn't come by monthly or weekly? Who needs books only once a year? I would have went nutso. hee hee. I actually saw pictures of the vans too!

Mina Burrows said...

That's so cool. I never had anything like this either. That is a paradise. :)

Valentina Hepburn said...

Lord, no. We had nothing like that. We had to walk miles into town to the library (it felt like miles) and as soon as we went through the door we weren't allowed to speak or make a noise or the old bat at the desk would give us one of her looks and wave her hand at us to go out. And it definitely wasn't flippin' paradise! You're so lucky, Reimer!

Unknown said...

Tanya, I love the idea of mobile libraries. It's sad that most of them have gone away. Read an article not long ago about the "dying" book-mobile, and while we never had one growing up, I loved the idea.

Hopefully folks can figure out a way to keep them going.