Buses in Lee’s Summit, Cass have specific routes. Young readers delight in its path

Right before the pandemic started, the Lee’s Summit School District was putting the final touches on its new bookmobile. The crisis delayed staff training for its roll-out until December 2020, but families who have gotten onboard the refitted bus are thrilled with the experience.

“Literacy is the cornerstone of academic success. We want every child in our community to have access to robust reading materials both during school and in the summer,” said Laura Maxwell, director of library media services for the district.

What’s different about this bookmobile is that kids get to keep the books they pick out each time. Library staff members are on-hand to help them choose books appropriate for both the kids’ interests and their reading levels.

The Cass County Public Library has its own bookmobile. https://www.casscolibrary.org/bookmobile/ which makes stops in Harrisonville, Cleveland, Peculiar and Raymore, among other location. It’s wheelchair accessible, has wireless internet and can fill material requests. Check to site for more information.

In Lee’s Summit, Molly Ingargiola’s children got their turn at the bookmobile Dec. 21.

“My kids really love to read, they love every kind of book whether it’s ‘Captain Underpants’ or book about Barbies or fantasy or even non-fiction,” she said. “We got personalized help from librarian so that my overconfident kindergartener didn’t come home with a chapter book, and my third-grader didn’t come home with a too-young picture book.”

Two of her three children are school-aged and attend Meadow Lane Elementary.

The books come to the bookmobile in a variety of ways. Sometimes they’ve been removed from circulation at school libraries; other times, they’re donations. The program does not have storage space to accommodate rolling donations but will put out a quarterly call for books.

Various groups in the community, including Rotary and the chamber of commerce have contributed.

The bookmobile has materials for all levels, from board books all the way through young adult literature.

Maxwell said the neighborhoods targeted first were ones where kids might not be close enough to a Mid-Continent Library branch to have easy access on their own.

“It was really nice, because the closest library to us is shut down. They are rebuilding it. When they aren’t able to be at school all the time, it’s nice for them to have something fresh to read,” Ingargiola said.

Maxwell plans to increase the number of places they go this summer. Because most students are back in school buildings now, the bus will “be in a holding pattern” until summer, when it will go out weekly, she said.

“The primary goals are to foster a love of reading and build a sense of community in Lee’s Summit,” she said.

She has worked with Coldwater and the city’s transportation department in refitting the bus and planning its routes. When the bookmobile is headed to a neighborhood, she lets families know through the district’s messaging system and through word of mouth by school staff.

During its visits, library staff members have limited the number of kids on board at any one time for COVID safety. At one stop, there were as many as 40 families who lined up to wait their turn.

Although the bookmobile is really an old school bus, with its brightly colored new paint job, it’s easy for kids to spot it. The inside has impressed them, too.

“(My kids) thought it was so cool that it was like a real little library they could go into,” Ingargiola said. ”They had couches, seating areas and cool lighting.”