Fourth of July Parade!

We marched in our city's Fourth of July Parade!  It was a blast and easy to do!  I would encourage you other bookmobile librarians out there to give it a try!


Here's what we did:We decorated the bookmobile, of course.  That is, we added crepe paper, flags and literary characters such as the wild things you can barely see in this photo:

 



We had about 15 people total.  A few were volunteers but most were library workers.  Several dressed up as fictional characters.





The Cat in the Hat pulled Thing 1 and Thing 2 (his two daughters) in a wagon--until one of the wheels fell off one block into the parade.  The wagon was thrown into the bookmobile, along with Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Thing 1 eventually walked with her Papa, but Thing 2, being only two years old, rode shot gun with my daughter and eventually fell asleep.  Here is a photo before the wheels fell off:



Here is a photo of my daughter and our dog Pearl, riding shotgun:



Little Red Riding Hood passed out library bookmarks.  The evil witch teased people with her poisoned apple.  Snow White was part of the library book cart drill team of which there were four total.  They did not rehearse until just before the start of the parade.  They had four moves which were started with the blast from a whistle.  Very easy and fun, except you need a little physical stamina!

  Here is a photo of my husband dressed up for his book cart drill team fun:

 

This was such a blast!  The only problem was that the parade went too quickly!  Try to get into a parade if your community has one.  It's great outreach for the library.  I can't tell you how many kids shouted out "Miss Leslie!"  or "Library Lady!" or plain old "Bookmo!".  A great time was had by all.