It’s hard to believe the summer is flying by so fast but there are only two weeks left of Bookmans Free Summer Kids Events. We have great stuff in store for next week. In Flagstaff we’re hosting Willow Bend Environmental Center who will teach bigger kids about rocks/geology and younger kids about ants. The first week in August it’s time for super fun back to school parties that get kids excited for a new school year. Check out our events calendar for all the fun we have in store.

Here’s what we did last week:

Flagstaff
School days, school days, dear ol' golden rule days! This week kids colored canvas pencil pouches to hold their erasers, pens, pencils and other scholarly supplies.  Flagstaff kiddos stenciled their names, favorite animals, fantasy characters or slogans on these simple pencil pouches. Some decided to freestyle it, making their own colorful graphic art to add panache to their school stuff. And we keep on getting super excited about a whole new school year with Willow Bend Environmental education next week and our fabulous Back-to-School Party the week after. Don’t miss it. We’re gettin’ ready for reading and writing and arithmetic (minus the hickory stick)!

July gave us another great Third Thursday filled with live music! This month we welcomed 14-year-old Sara Feipel who describes her music style as peppy, thoughtful and not just “fluffled over” like some other artists might be. This brave singer, songwriter and musician set up in our Music Department with her guitar, mic and genuine talent.

Yippee! We've been having a blast at our free summer kids events, going strong all summer long. Check out our events calendar for the local listings. Here's what we did last week:

Bookmans Phoenix

Customers soared out of the heat and into our cool kids event where we created kites to enjoy in the windy weather. We took plain sheets of card stock and used some simple folding techniques to form the basic shape of a kite. We then added tape to keep everything in place during flight and decorated our kites. Our summer kids group applied fun animal designs, stripes, polka dots, flowers, unicorns and hearts to give each a creative touch. We put in a request for them to report back about how the first flight went when we all gather again next week for the Pirate Party! The kids enjoyed seeing plain paper turn into high flying fun and we enjoyed giving them the how-to. We wish everyone a safe take off and landing!

The weather is getting hotter and so are our prizes! It has not stopped our amazingly cool Twitter followers from using their noggins to find local business booty via @bookmansphoenix on Twitter! This month's prizes included gift cards to Smeeks, Harkins Theaters and Souvia Tea! What better ways to beat the heat in the hot Phoenix weather and to support a local business?

Happy Dog Days of Summer! Another great Dog Days of Summer event with the Animals' Crusaders. Lisa had her furry friend Holly a beautiful and very sweet pit-bull with her today providing information on how you can be a hero to animal in need.

As you can see in the pictures Holly loves being in front of the camera. Find us on Flickr to check them out. You can learn more about this great organization at www.acofaz.com/. PeaceLove

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 Konamis: Isle de los Abeja

Bookmans Flagstaff enjoyed our small part of the ever-popular Flagstaff Fourth of July Parade. We got lots of whoops and cheers as we pushed our strollers and pulled our Burley trailers up the hills of downtown. As always we had a green entry and used only our own kinetic energy to propel ourselves through the streets. Book Man gave the kids high fives and our Bookmans troupe of teenagers handed out Smarties while our music and book supervisors led us in cheers of "Who Loves Books? We do!" One of the Bookmans kiddos led the crowd in the wave. In short we had a party and were happy for all the support and familiar faces.

If there is one thing cooler than having awesome animal organizations in our stores, it's the news when these wonderful animals find a home. We are happy to report that two beautiful puppies were adopted at a Bookmans Speedway meet and greet! One adoption was our good friend and co-worker Mazzy whose family who took home little Baxter, an 8 week-old shepard. Cutest thing ever.

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 Konamis: Rock the Boat

Shiver me timbers! Our super successful June Edition of the Bookmans Treasure Hunt: The Search For Local Business Booty in Tucson had us skipping down the aisles. Many thanks to the Local First Arizona member that hid the prize package including movie theater tickets, a BOB merchandise coupon and a Creative Costumes gift card to our devoted fans who used their noggins and our clues to find the booty (you sprogs brought tears to our eyes). Though we distributed no doubloons each prize package was worth $50 and in this economy we could all use some awesomely free stuff as well as supporting local businesses.

It has been a spectacular summer so far with our Summer Kids Events, but last week we saw sparkling creativity with several Independence Day-related crafts! Are Superheroes more your thing? Check out how Tucson celebrated Superhero Week.

Flagstaff:

For our summer kids' event this last week, Flagstaff kids got ready for the 4th of July Parade with red, white and blue necklace beading and wooden Flag making. Everyone's patriotic decorations turned out beautifully. Come see us next week for reusable tote bag and handmade-at-Bookmans tee-shirt decorating! Check out the pictures here.

Phoenix:

It’s the week before the 4th of the July so we insisted that our kids turn recycled items into their own patriotic toys! We saved old cd’s, dvd’s, soda bottle caps and marbles to create 4th of July spinners unlike any you have ever seen! . By coloring on the cd’s, placing the marble inside of the bottle cap and gluing the bottle cap onto the cd hole, the kids has spin tops that kept them occupied and proud for quite some time. They colored swirls, flags, fireworks and squiggles on their blank cd’s and once the spinning began, their drawings blended together beautifully. We also handed out plastic American flags for everyone to proudly wave around during whatever fireworks display they were attending over the weekend. Everyone had a blast and we hope the kids have a fun and safe holiday! Check out the pictures here.

Mesa:

Bookmans Mesa kicked off Independence Day like a firecracker with our "Star Spangled Bangles". This week we tackled the art of stringing beads to make some "Red, White, and Blue" fun. Some even branched out, and made necklaces and collars for their pets. Every creation was unique and different, but every one was AWESOME! Check out the pictures here.

Speedway:

This week at our Summer Kids Events we celebrated Super Heros! What do you think your super hero would look like and what type of super powers would he/she have? We took pictures of kids flying through the air, colored super hero sheets and created bookmarks out of comic books! It was superific! Up Up and Away! Check out the pictures here.

Ina:

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's.... Super Hero Week at Bookmans! We had a blast designing our own super hero costumes; mine was basically just a big scribble that looks like something Lady Gaga might wear. We also made our own bookmarks using cut-up comic books. Let me tell ya, my new Dick Tracy bookmark looks so good sitting inside my copy of A Game of Thrones right now. In addition lots of kids flew by, but our lighting speed shutter camera caught glimpses of these super heroes that can be viewed on our Flickr feed. Next week, Puppet Muzik! Check out the pictures here.

Grant:

Zoinks! What a super time we had dressing up and coloring our very own superheros! One of the very special superheros drawn even had a disappearing belt and cape! We took some neat-o pics of ourselves in action as we took flight to save the world and even got some helpful tips from Michelle on how to be a super hero in real life. Word! Thanks to all the kids who came out to rescue the rest of the world from summertime boredom :) Check out the pictures here.