The World's Strongest Librarian

A play about the power of books, muscles and human kindness. Josh (or Jo, since almost any role can be cast male or female) is the children's librarian at a poor public library facing a huge budget crisis. He's also a power lifter, pumping iron in the library basement and running a video blog about young adult and children's books, weights and life. Kids flock to his unconventional story time and check out books by the dozens. All but one kid, that is—a loner named Mr. T (or Ms. T), who has the loud tics of Tourette syndrome. Slowly, Josh and Mr. T form a friendship, and Mr. T finally ventures to Josh's basement gym, where a friendship is born. The stakes go up when the town says the library needs to close for monetary reasons. This hits Josh and the kids hard and leads to them staging a '60s-inspired Read-In rather than letting their library be shut down. At the play's end, a Sixth Sense-like ending reveals the true identity of Mr. T. The World's Strongest Librarian will get kids pumped up to read, to work themselves into shape and especially to be kind to others.