About Us » History

Buggies and Bikes!

FUN – and extraordinary CREATIVITY – shaped the RIFSoCal we know and love today!

It’s 1970 in Santa Fe Springs Park.  Imagine children running off to have fun - and finding Mother Goose playing her harp on the lawn!  Then imagine the children’s delight when Mother Goose gathered them into a circle, read them a story and encouraged them to choose a wonderful new book to keep as their very own.  “Books in the Park” was the creation of Santa Fe Springs Librarian, Ruth Grams – alias Mother Goose – one of RIFSoCal’s founders.

August 1972 brought “Books on Bikes.”  Boy Scouts from troop 976 rode bikes to 4 city parks and 2 city street sites just to give books away to children!  Strapped to their backs were Pony Express style bags decorated with “Bike it—You’ll Like It!” and filled with 25 personally selected books to encourage children to return to the same location each week to choose a new book or exchange the one that they had chosen the previous week.

1975 featured “The Book Buggy!” 

  Visualize an old, black baby buggy decorated with crepe paper fringe and filled with magical, engaging children’s books.This “concerted effort to get youngsters into books and books into the hands of youngsters” was part of “America in Books for Children and Young People” co-sponsored by RIFSoCal and the California Museum of Science and Industry.

To this very day, RIFSoCal “Inspires Readers for Tomorrow,” creating magic by bringing books and children together. Let’s keep the FUN alive!