We were lucky to have the Book Bike visit ASC this past weekend. Audience members who came to our 2:00 matinee of 500 Clown Trapped were able to visit the bike and take a book home. Here's a note from 500 Clown Board Member, Anjali Bidani, who set up our Book Bike visit. Thanks Anjali and Gabe!

First of all: FULL DISCLOSURE. I love to read. I have loved to read from the moment I learned how. I was that 7 year old who left the library every weekend with 22 or 23 books and returned the next weekend for more. 20 was my mother’s limit, but I was usually able to sneak in a few more. I know how many I checked out weekly because in an effort to make sure we returned all those books the next weekend, my mother made me make a list of the books in a designated spiral notebook as soon as we returned home from our library visit (I can’t blame her, there were some significant library fines before this system was set in place). I have glorious memories, and lifelong connections to Frances the hedgehog, Paddington Bear, Lowly Worm, Henry Sugar and Charlie Bucket, just to name a few. I honestly can’t imagine anything better than being able to share that joy of reading with someone else.
 
I first heard about the Book Bike last summer – when a mutual friend of Gabe Levinson’s and mine hosted a fundraiser at his home for the Book Bike. I read an article about the trials of the Book Bike and, given what you now know about my reading habit, it’s no surprise that I couldn’t imagine a more delightful thing to discover at a park. (I was definitely glad that the Chicago Public Library stepped in to partner with the Book Bike.)
 
A man with free books on a bike tricked out with a bookshelf? As one young patron last Saturday said – it’s like the ice cream man. But really, so much better, because a good book can last forever, and a good ice cream really only has about 15 minutes of joy to give, and then it’s done.
 
I had just joined the board of 500 Clown a few months prior, and at my first meeting, Adrian had talked a bit about the all-ages show that was in the process of being created. When I saw the Book Bike and talked to Gabe, I immediately thought of how wonderful it would be to go to a 500 Clown show and then encounter the Book Bike and end the afternoon with memories of the performance AND a great book in hand. I mentioned my idea to Gabe, Adrian and Leslie and they were on board from the beginning. Everyone at Adventure Stage liked the idea as well. From there I found an incredibly generous donor to provide the funds to purchase the books, and gathered suggestions about what books to stock the Bike with. We purchased the books from Women and Children First and The Book Cellar, both small independent bookstores in Chicago, and then, after last Saturday’s matinee, I watched children discussing books with Gabe, with each other (one boy very authoritatively advised a group of kids – “The Giver is the BEST book”), and their parents, discussing the logistics of having a bookshelf attached to a bike, and then walking out with one of these books, hopefully destined to discover a new friend, a new world, and new ideas that will be with them forever. It was MAGIC.