Steve Ross has worked at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena since 1989, but chances are good that if you call the store and ask for him by his first and last name, the employee on the phone will think you have the wrong number.

That’s because Ross is known simply as Mr. Steve, as in Mr. Steve’s Storytime, a Vroman’s staple that takes over a bright corner of its voluminous children’s book section twice a week. Since taking the helm of Storytime in 1993, Ross has become a store icon whose image is captured in life-sized cardboard cutouts displayed around the store.

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