The Cat in the Hat and San Antonio Councilman Roger Flores reading to kids from Neil Armstrong Elementary School.

This week I was lucky enough to spend some time in sunny San Antonio, Texas. What a fun town! I was there to help set up an event at the San Antonio Central Library, an impressive-looking contemporary building where crowds of people literally wait around outside for the doors to open in the morning. That’s the attitude we like to see!

Thirty 1st graders came to the event to receive copies of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham from First Book, part of a 20,000-book distribution in San Antonio, sponsored by Idearc Media Corp., publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages and Superpages.com. San Antonio was one of eight cities participating in the “Cast Your Vote for Literacy” campaign last fall, and the library played a key role in mobilizing their online vote to win the distribution. Great job, San Antonio!

The Cat in the Hat was there with us to celebrate and was a huge hit with the kids, as was the library’s mascot, Libro the Lion. The kids even enjoyed green eggs and ham tacos, although don’t worry: we learned from our past experiments that dyed bacon wasn’t the way to go. Instead, our caterer made tacos with scrambled eggs, ham, and spinach, which is apparently the original dish that inspired Dr. Seuss’ book.

This was the first time I was ever personally present to hand out books to children, and I have to say that it just floored me. After remarks had been made, the book had been read out loud (with much animation and good humor) by Councilman Roger Flores, and the tacos had all been eaten, the kids sat scattered around the room to read the book themselves. It was really something to see them running their fingers under the words, each child trying to read louder than the boy or girl next to him.

I hope to visit San Antonio again someday to enjoy the Riverwalk and tour The Alamo, but I’ll be sure to stop in at their amazing library and check out a copy of Green Eggs and Ham.