For the last couple of years, I've lead the charge (with our Assistant Store Manager, Desiree) to assemble and decorate a Bookmans bike-powered float for the Flagstaff 4th of July parade. This year, our kids' books expert Professor Pepe did the building and our visual merchandiser Regina, the sweetest girl ever, did the decorating, but I'm still proud to be involved. I did my part by surviving the American Legion meeting where all parade participants suddenly feel like we've been sent to the principal's office (or joined the armed forces) while we get yelled at to never ever throw things from our float. After all, it could take an eye out!

Our very first summer song poem contest was a smash of harmonic awesomeness! We (Bookmans own Scott Landrum & Travis Spillers) set the customer’s poems alight with music! The poems covered anything from a very unhappy Alice in Wonderland to getting dirty in the backyard! Our grand prize winner ($100 Bookmans gift certificate) was Tuesday McCormick with her sassy "Backyard Song". Second prize (a sweet shiny blue acoustic guitar) went to Jane Smart for her touching "Sons and Daughters". Third prize went to Venis Gonzalez and her homage to her mother "Girlfriend, Hot Mama". Everyone walked away with a CD copy of their song poem and great big smiles in their hearts! All agreed that we should do it again soon (we had more entries than time).

Chicks with Picks sent out two of their talented musicians to teach a one hour songwriting class for teens. All of our attendees were already heavily involved in music and either had played local Phoenix venues before with their own band, or were just starting out with their garage band. The local band Scorch Muffin sent their lead singer and guitarist, Alex and Brandon, to the songwriting class to help them get tips on how to go about creating their own song so they could move away from being a cover band.

Another great live performance in our store today! This one by local college students Paul Kerr and Ian Wishnies!

The duo sat down and got to rocking at 2:00 p.m. in our living room and an audience formed quickly there after. Their hour long set consisted of original tunes by the guys as well as a variety of cover songs ranging from Bob Dylan to Elvis Presley. Customers were very happy with the change of environment in the store, many inquiring if this was a weekly event. Which sadly (at the moment) it is not, but all the performers for Music Month have been awesome and you can look forward to all of them making an encore performance later in the year!

As always, you can see pictures from the event here on the Flickr page. Next month begins the Dog Days of Summer!

Our Bookmans kids got “wild” this week with a special visit from the Phoenix Zoo as part of our Summer Kids Events. The non-profit zoo sent out their team member, Noelle for a special “Rainforest Adventure” presentation. She brought along with her those mysterious covered crates that held some of the zoo’s special animals. Noelle taught us that half of all animals in the rainforest so it’s very important for everyone to do their part and take care of it.

Violins, drum sticks, violas and more! What an event! The Tucson Civic Orchestra of Tucson was on hand with their famous instrument petting zoo. The kids, and grown ups, got a chance to play some really cool instruments from a drummers practice pad, violins, violas, fiddles, trombones and trumpets too a xylophone! The girl scouts were here as well with a great musical theme coloring book that the kids colored and took home. The faces on the kids blowing the horned instruments were great and they were really good. Surprisingly good! Follow this link to check out the pictures from this awesome event!

Saturday night was pretty hoppin' as the four horsemen of the aROCKalypse brought the jams to Bookmans Ina!

Zach Warner, Michael Gonzales, Tony McMillen and Michael Huerta strapped on their acoustic guitars and waged a war on eardrums. Lucky for our customers, war has never sounded so sweet. We were treated to a variety of original tunes by these four gentlemen for nearly two hours and I must say that it's the most fun that's been had in this store for some time now. Similar to an open mic night at a coffee shop, a revolving door of folks sat down in our living room for a while to listen in before heading out for the night, many becoming fans and inquiring about upcoming performances at the store. I can definitely say it was a success and you can look forward to many more music performances in our location... starting this Saturday with another acoustic performance by local artists Paul Kerr and Ian Wishnies. See you there!

For pictures of the rockin' check out our page on Flickr here.

The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Hive (Cover)

For the seventh year in a row, the Devastation Gaming Event, Expo & Tournament, brings professional gaming to a new level in the city of Phoenix. This year an all new VIP event was added to the Thursday night programming for the weekend. A relaxing event where industry professionals, gamers, supporters, and the Devastation crew were able to hang out before the big event. Games were open for casual gaming, while the Bookmans Retro Game Zone rocked out titles such as Bubble, Bobble & TMNT: Tournament Fighters. I had a great time casually meeting the guests and am looking forward to the next three days of gaming insanity! If you are interested in checking Devastation out and live in Phoenix come on down! Free to attend all weekend long.

Man oh man did we have an awesome time making our own tambourines today, and we saw some super creative ones! Everybody loved shakin' their stuff and the Girl Scouts handed out songbooks so that we could sing along to their fun tunes! Check out the pictures here.

Bookmans Flagstaff is hosting our FREE summer kids events every Wednesday morning at the Orpheum Theater from 10-11am, and, so far they have been a blast! We've had a hoe-down with Tony Norris, made tree collages with Raquel Rotnes, and decorated “Handmade at Bookmans” tee-shirts for Father's Day. Next week, we have Michael Steele's Magic Show. It's nice and cool inside the Orpheum on a hot summer day, and we provide snacks, drinks, and other free stuff. See here for some pictures of our latest event.

The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Old Man and The Bee

We had another great Summer Kids Event today! Our living room was alive with the sound of music this morning as made our own tambourines! Kids and parents of all ages got together to work on this fun project. After the tambourines were made, we decorated them with tons of different colors and stickers so that no two tambourines were alike. Then came the tambourine parade around the store, jingling and jangling all the way. Also, thanks to the Girl Scouts for coming down and teaching us some cool songs!

Check out the pics on our Flickr page and come out next week for the Instrument Petting Zoo!

The Konamis is a webcomic by Jack Crawford and Bookmans own Tavis Maiden (@tavismaiden). Updated each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, follow the adventures of The Konamis, a real comic tale about the real comic adventure of The Konamis (meaning "little waves"), the little ol' rock band that makes a big splash!

The Hive

Hello, summer! I was watching the news this morning as the anchor bantered with a guest about the low temperature of 90 degrees the city of Phoenix is experiencing this weekend like it was something to look forward to. My response? Hot is hot! I am a native Arizonan. I have lived here my entire life in various parts of our great state. While Flagstaff is nice to visit, I have recently discovered that I loathe freezing temperatures and snow. Who knew?

What I enjoy about Phoenix is that you can always count on the warmth of the sun. Like many others, I will never enjoy 45 minute treks across the Valley while my love, the sun, blazes down upon my car with 110 degree temperatures. But I welcome her brightness into my bedroom every morning.

The Girl Scouts were with us on Thursday to host a really cool event. Miss V. lead the girls in a bottlecap craft. They made key chains, jewlery and dog tags out of bottle caps. Cut up magazines, glitter and silly eyes were just some of the crazy decorations used during this event! If you missed this event, don't worry it is happening again at our Ina location on June  24th, from 3:30 to 5:00.  Check out our Flickr page to check out the pictures from this event!

Wednesday (k)nights are heating up at Bookmans on Ina! Every Wednesday, we host free gaming in our living room. This week it was all about Dungeons & Dragons. With two seperate games going on, the adventures are endless (or at least until 9:00 p.m.). We also offer a free Magic: The Gathering league with prizes such as promo cards and even trade credit! Tell your friends that Wednesday night belongs to the Wednesday Knight Nerds!

For more pictures check out the Flickr page!

Abracadabra -- Patrick the Magician was here and then, he disappeared! This free summer kids event at Bookmans Speedway was great; Patrick is an amazing magic man with great tricks that you've never seen before, and of course, classic tricks -- like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The kids loved him and Patrick's rabbit, Simba, was a huge hit! Check out some pictures from our event over at our Flickr page.

Another great time today at Bookmans Ina as the Summer Kids Events keep on rolling!

Today, Patrick the Magician was in our store performing some pretty amazing feats and leaving jaws on the carpet! Even the parents were entertained as Patrick joked and put a rabbit in a hat... that's right, IN a hat, not out. Kids came from all over to witness this entertaining magician, our living room area was packed to the brim so everyone could catch a glimpse of the magic.

Every Tuesday at our Ina location we'll be hosting Summer Kids Events and honestly, they just get better every week. Next Tuesday we're going to be making our own tambourines and I know it's going to be a blast!

In keeping with June's theme of music month, Bookmans Phoenix and Bookmans Mesa celebrated guitars, music and more in their stores this weekend. Over at Mesa, we welcomed Carol Pacey from Chicks with Picks. Carol is a well-known artist from the Phoenix/Tempe area, and has been playing locally since 2008. Join us again at Bookmans Mesa on June 19 for more Chicks with Picks in the stores!

Carol from Chicks with Picks

Summer is unofficially here in Phoenix with days and days of triple digits scorching us already. But no need to fear--Bookmans is here to the rescue the hot upcoming months with cool indoor kids events all summer long!

The Believer magazine, a subsidiary of McSweeney’s, has always been a font of amazing authors, artists, film-makers and musicians that pass under the radar. The magazine’s subtitle could be “A magazine for over-educated, over-articulate nerds.” Which might seem insulting if it didn’t describe so many of my friends and coworkers (and, of course, myself). Last month’s issue gave a list of recommended books, one of which included “The Cardboard Universe, A Guide To The World Of Phoebus K. Dank” by Christopher Miller. Being a huge fan of the life and work of Philip K. Dick, the obvious target of this parody, I was intrigued.

YARRR! Cap'n Read-A-Book sailed in from the seas with her pirate treasure and stories to read us a pirate story and painted skull and bones on our faces! Shiver me timbers! We went for a treasure hunt and traded our finds for balloon swords. There was a pirate quiz and if you got the anwser wrong, you had to walk the plank! Check out more pictures here!

Yarrrrrgh! Our first Summer Kids Event ended in sword fighting all throughout the store! Wait... let's start from the beginning.

Kids at Bookmans Ina were treated to a fun, interactive pirate adventure and story time today! Cap'n Read-A-Lot stopped by the store to teach kids about a pirate's life, which included: earning nicknames (such as Ravishing Ruby the Ruthless), how to speak like a pirate ("shiver me timbers!") and a few kids even walked the plank! (They swam back to shore safely.) After listening to some pirate tales, we let the kids loose to search from some treasure in the store. After looting all the coins, jewels, and rings we could hold, we traded in our booty for balloon swords and had a good old-fashioned, swashbuckling sword fight!