What are your earliest memories of books? Do you remember a favorite relative or friend reading to you as a child? Do you remember the joy you felt when you were learning to read or does it seem as if you always had a love affair with the written word?
One of my fondest memories is the day I discovered the library and received my first library card. I was in first grade and Sister Hope walked us all to the public library that was six blocks from our school in northern Wisconsin. All of these years later I can still remember how we sat in a circle as the librarian explained how these books were available for us to take home as long as we had our own very special little card. She taught us how to take care of books by washing our hands before picking up a book, never bending back the page corners or leaving a book open face down. Even now I am a fanatic about using bookmarks. I have even been known to ask for a loaned book back from a friend who I found had left it lying on the end table, open, pages down.
That first day at the library opened up a whole new world to me. I remember getting my own little green card and picking out two Dr. Seuss books to take home. I watched as the librarian marked the date on the book's card with a stamp attached to the end of a very sharp #2 pencil. I felt very important as walking out with those books under my arm.
There were years when I fell away from using the library and became almost obsessive about buying books. However, after my move to New Hampshire this past year, my finances no longer allowed the book club or store spending sprees. I needed to make a change and within my first week here I checked out the local library in my very small New England town.
After living in a metropolitan area with very large impersonal libraries for 26 years, I was very pleased to find a small, but very well stocked library, in my new hometown. I was tickled when the librarian said to me "Here is the deal with our library – No fines. Just get the books back as close to the due date as you can." Ever since my first visit she has always greeted me by my first name.
It is a warm, welcoming place. It makes me feel six years old again.
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Comments: 13
The great thing about the library is that it gets me "outside the box." I am more willing to try different authors and different types of books when I can just return it read, unread or partially read. Nothing worse than spending money on an unsatisfying book.
Linda wrote: "I have even been known to ask for a loaned book back from a friend who I found had left it lying on the end table, open, pages down."
From the above statement, Linda, I think you could relate to Anne Fadiman's essay "Never Do That to a Book". It's in her collection, "Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader" if you haven't read it already.
My grandmother is a retired librarian and when we visited my grandparents we would stop at the library and I would always check out the same book - Blue Moose by Manus Pinkwater.
I remember how proud I was to get my card and to be told that I could check out five books right then. It did not take me long to find those five books. While my siblings were still looking, I read one of the books, held it close, and treasured it before starting another one.
I remember quickly graduating to adult books when I was about ten, always wanting to read true stories of brave people, hopeful people. My siblings would spend their time in the children's section while I ravenously explored the adult section, pulling every book out whose title intrigued me. I would begin reading the first chapter to see how the book would draw me into its world.
Today, when I am in a library or in a bookstore, I find myself doing that very thing, so many years later. How glorious it is to read!