Sarah Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger along with a mayor, a police chief, a town councilman and an exterminator made appearances at the Mount Airy Public Library Thursday afternoon.

However, they were all pint-sized.

Brack Llewellyn helped the library kick off its summer reading program with a story of his own invention about a little place called Buildingtown that had an unexpected cockroach problem.

“I’m going to tell you a story today that no one on the planet Earth has heard,” he said.

Llewellyn then chose members from the audience to help portray the characters in the story. Evann Shelnutt as Happy the mayor, Jonah Hodges as Snappy the police chief and Corbin Moose as Pappy the town councilman were charged with ridding the cockroaches from Buildingtown and so set about hiring an exterminator.

Sam Martin took on the role of Roger the exterminator, getting rid of all of the cockroaches. However, he then handed over the bill — “a thrillion and beyond.”

Unable to pay the bill, the town authorities head to California in search of gold. There, they meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, played by Victor Coleman, who declares, “I am the gov-ena of Cali-foyn-ya.” Finding no gold left there, they head to Alaska and meet Sarah Palin, played by Brianna Banten, who proclaims, “I’m the governor, dontcha know.”

Still in search of a way to pay the exterminator’s bill, the trio returns to Buildingtown and head to the library where they find money hidden in one of the books.

“If you open up books, you’re going to find things that are better than money,” said Llewellyn to gasps of “Better than money?!”

With more than 200 children in attendance and more than 50 adults with them, the kick off to the program was declared a success. People were left standing in the hall outside the multipurpose room because there was not enough room for them inside. The children delighted in the storytelling and the parents enjoyed having something for their children to do now that school is out for the summer.

“It’s really fun and there’s other stuff besides books,” said Destini Hudson, 8, who attended the program with her mom.

They try to attend any programs the library offers and Hudson often meets up with friends there.

Amy Edwards has an almost 5-year-old and an 8-year-old who both enjoy the summer reading programs at the library.

“I think they gain a lot from it. It gives them a lot of exposure to different areas,” she said. “Everything we’ve ever come to, both have come out with something. It’s still a viable thing for the library to be doing. I’m a big advocate for library use.”

The summer reading program will continue through July 30 on Thursday afternoons. All of the activities are free to the public. Most of the activities have two times with the library preferring younger children to go to the 1:30 p.m. offering and older children to go to the 3:30 program. However, organizers said that this is not strict and families with split age levels should pick the time that is most convenient.

Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.