Hello! Where to start. If you don’t know me, I work with kids talking about books, at 2 different jobs. I’ve been doing this for at least 15 years, which is a surprise because I was not the kid you would find with a book in her hands when I was younger. I love this work. It is fun, fulfilling and always different. You never know how a kiddo feels about reading until you ask them. Several times a week you will hear me saying, “You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t like it”. However since March I haven’t been able to do that. I haven’t crawled around on the floor making animal sounds as I do my pajama storytime at the library. I haven’t looked into the faces of the kids at school as I read aloud to see if they were engaged. I haven’t handed a child a book that I was excited about.
It is now August, and what we all suspected happened. It was announced that school will start in the virtual world again. In addition, my branch of the library I work at won’t open fully to the public until sometime in 2021. Then, it hit me. There is the very real possibility that some kids haven’t had a new book in almost 6 months. That is just unacceptable. But what can I do? I had often thought of opening a book mobile but no real motivation to do it. Now, I have the motivation. I remember the book mobile as a child. It was connected to my public library so you had to have a library card to check out a book. I decided that’s not how Potter’s Sweet Pages will work. Any child who visits the bookmobile and needs a book will get one, and if I never see that child again, well then I know they have a book. I have to start small right now as I don’t even have any vehicle other than my car and the books I have are in bins. I have to be aware of Oregon’s “too many people together in one place” guideline and other things I am sure I am missing. But with my “mobile” and my “books”, Potter’s Sweet Pages Book Mobile is born
Potter’s Sweet Pages Book Mobile 