Behind the wheel of the Bookmobile, reading flourishes neighborhood by neighborhood

It’s a warm Tuesday evening in northeast Sioux Falls, but if you get too hot, you can always step inside the Bookmobile.

Be warned, though. Once you’re in, you won’t come out without a book.

Or if you’re 8-year-old Marley Davenport, maybe four.

“Is it OK if she checks out four?” Rural West librarian Sharlene Lien asks Davenport’s mom.

Lein brought some of these books specifically for Davenport. They’d talked about them in one of the Bookmobile’s previous weekly stops to Laura B. Anderson Elementary.

And how can an 8-year-old say no to a title like “The Wolf in Underpants”?

The Siouxland Libraries’ current Bookmobile, a brightly colored 2019 Freightliner MT-55 toting around 4,500 books, started making trips around town last fall.

“It’s basically a branch on wheels,” Rural West librarian Pete Hanson said.

Photo courtesy of Siouxland Heritage Museums

But the practice of bringing books to Sioux Falls-area kids dates back to the 1950s. Then-librarian Pauline Striemer helped start the first Bookmobile, purchased for $7,500, and service began in October 1951, according to Siouxland Heritage Museums.

Striemer went on to run the Bookmobile for 40 years before she retired in the early 1990s, and when she died at age 93 this spring, the current Bookmobile came to her funeral as a tribute.

Photo courtesy of Siouxland Heritage Museums

Today, the Bookmobile continues the practice of meeting kids where they are – in neighborhoods, child care centers, schools and parks.

At Laura B. Anderson, it’s a regular part of the Tuesday evening Kid Link event in partnership with Sioux Falls Thrive.

Each week, kids in the Riverside neighborhood can come to the school playground for crafts, treats, dinner and, of course, books.

“We have our regulars, which is great,” Lien says.

There also are the new faces who trickle in. It can be tough to compete with the Stensland ice cream being given away along the far side of the playground, but the librarians know that if you have a hook, you can get kids to stop.

Some weeks, that hook is popsicles.

This particular week, the hook is a Polaroid photo kids can take with their face in the hole of a “Tales and Tails” summer reading program-themed board.

Hanson takes the photos and then explains, again and again as new kids come by, how Polaroids work.

“The white side will turn into a picture,” he says to a puzzled elementary-aged kid.

But as they wait for the image to appear, they can pop in and take a look at some of the books available for checkout.

Downtown librarian Stephanie Bents helps 8-year-old Ta’veona Stafford sign up for the summer reading program inside the bus, while outside Lien is working to convince Ta’veona’s sixth-grade brother, Ja’vonte, to sign up as well.

“I don’t read,” Ja’vonte said.

Not five minutes later, though, he is in the Bookmobile, book in hand, signing up for the program.

“Nobody leaves without some kind of reading material,” Lien says.

And she means it. About 4,000 books are checked out currently from the Bookmobile.

An obvious goal of the Bookmobile is to promote reading, but in the summer months it’s particularly important because kids aren’t in school.

Kids can sign up for a library card in the Bookmobile if they have their parent with them. If they don’t, that’s no problem, either.

The library system recently began piloting its new “Student Success Card” – a library card that lets kids who attend school in Sioux Falls or Minnehaha County check out a couple of books at a time – unlike regular cards where the limit is 50 items. The success cards can easily roll into a regular library card with a parent’s help.

Back on the Laura B. Anderson playground, swings are creaking, and kids are playing on the playground, fanning Polaroids, eating ice cream and carrying their new-found reading materials.

Most of the 30 to 50 kids who come through each week are elementary-aged, but the range spans from toddlers all the way to adults looking for books in the Bookmobile.

Kids can request books, and the librarians will make a note to bring them on the next trip.

That’s just one benefit of the consistency of seeing the Bookmobile in the same spots week after week.

“You get to know the kids,” Lien says. “You get to promote summer reading.”

Where to find the Bookmobile

You can find a list of upcoming Bookmobile events on the Siouxland Libraries website or by following the library system on Facebook.