New Haven Independent

Quick question: How many copies of To Kill A Mockingbird can fit into the approximately 20-foot bookmobile? The answer to this compelling question will be revealed Friday when the bookmobile will lead a parade to City Hall for the official kick-off of New Haven’s Big Read.

On Wednesday afternoon, the bookmobile was parked in front of the West River Senior Center out on Chapel Street. It warmed up for its Big Read star turn by doing something equally vital: resuming visits to the city’s eight senior centers after a hiatus of two years.

“All the money to operate the bookmobile,” said Cindy Morris, one of the librarians who staffs the traveling library, “comes from soft grant money. Not until recently have we found the funds to resume going here and to Bella Vista and the other centers.”

For the first part of the upcoming summer, the bookmobile will travel to day care centers and senior centers both, to some 27 sites per month, reaching approximately 700 young kids and older people who otherwise would have trouble going to the library.

For her part, Delois Conley was thrilled with her new library card, which Morris and her bookmobile colleague issued to a number of the seniors. Conley said she has five children and a goodly number of grandchildren, some of whom are in the armed forces in Korea and one in Iraq. She said she had made sure they all received a good education. Now they inspired her — she described herself as someone who watches TV first and then follows up by reading the book — to take reading a little more seriously.

“I wasn’t much of a student myself,” she said, “but in retirement I’m doing things I didn’t do and should maybe have done earlier in life. Yes.” Conley selected Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Catherine Brown (pictured below), the president of the West River seniors club, chose for her books Bill Cosby’s Kids Say the Darndest Things and a mystery by John Sherwood called The Hanging Garden. These are among the approximately 400 books that the bookmobile carries on its shelves, built into the sides of the vehicle.

The inventory is fairly split between books for kids and for older people. When the bookmobile visits day care centers — and the city’s Head Starts are among the most important stops — Morris and her colleague Jennifer Hall (who was pictured behind the wheel of the bookmobile at the top) also perform shows with puppets to entice the kids to read. “It’s such important work,” said Hall, who’s been working on the bookmobile for two years. “Some of the kids come from homes where books are simply not a part of their lives. Many of course value them right away, but others you have to show that books are not for tearing out the pages. The stories open up worlds for them, and it really warms my heart to see how much the love the books. We get as much out of these visits as the kids.”

The grants supporting such visits to Head Starts and some private day care centers, have already run out, Hall said. “They were over in February, but we found the money to extend them until June. After that, however, very sad to say, we won’t have enough to go there.

“So we’re planning our full summer on visits to young adults and to seniors. It’s always a question of these grants. Some, I hope, are pending, so we can continue the work with the little ones.”

Not everybody at the West River Senior Center came out to check out the bookmobile, although all were very glad to see it. Some of the club members said that in years gone by the center had its own library. But it appears to have dwindled.

This man, Irving Weinstein, age 93, had been, until recently, president of the club for 29 years. He remembered the library, as did his friend Lillian Lazeroff. All agreed, however, that it was often difficult for seniors to get downtown, many were wheelchair-bound, and the visit of the bookmobile, which is scheduled for twice a month, will be a plus.

It will augment a range of activities that the senior centers provide those who come daily, often by vans, provided by the city’s department of elderly services, at 8:30 in the morning, and returning people to their homes by 2:30.

As the bookmobile pulled up, a current events discussion was in full swing, led by, right to left, Joe Dimow, with Catherine Brown, the president of the club, Rasszue Beatty, and the director of the West River Center, Michele Clary Brown. They had been discussing — discussing, it was pointed out to a reporter, is not the same thing as arguing — a range of topics including 1) whether Imus should be fired; 2) the New Haven police scandal, and whether denial of pension benefits constitutes a violation of the presumption of innocence; and 3) why the fighting in Afghanistan has suddenly picked up. That was only the beginning when the bookmobile arrived.

No wonder some folks stayed put. There was a lot going on. Still, Rasszue Beatty broke away and went to the bookmobile before it pulled away. They didn’t have the book he wanted, Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. But librarian Jennifer Hall noted his request, and promised to deliver it when the book mobile returns later in the month. Oh, and Catherine Brown too said she would have liked to take out another book, a collection by Nelson Mandela. But she didn’t have the time. She was too busy reading To Kill a Mockingbird.