Inspired by Booksplease
Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. (There’s no way my parents could otherwise have kept up with my book habit when I was 10.) So … What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?
Oh, what a great question! The library, with its odors, bookshelves, silence, and precious, precious books, is handsdown on my top-ten list of places to be (without small children). I love to browse the stacks, seeking out the old books that have made it through the purges, turning their pages and treasuring them for the classics they are. I also love to pick up the new releases, feel the crispness of their covers and wonder if new friends await me inside. When I was a child, my joy was the fiction stacks, and while I still love to read a good story, I find myself in the non-fiction section more and more often.
My earliest memory of a library was our elementary school library. Because it was a former high school, the elementary school was a mishmash of rooms that were built to be something else. The library was in the old auto shop, with a cement floor, steps that led down into it, and great acoustics. My memories tell me that I questioned the librarian for several minutes about the placement of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. I’d been told repeatedly that they were autobiographical, yet they are filed in the fiction section of libraries. She had some nonsensical explanation that I don’t remember; I do remember, however, that I didn’t believe what she said and I walked away firmly dissatisfied in both her answer and the organization of books in a library.
My very most favorite memory of a library (besides seeing Belle open her eyes in that scene of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when the Beast gifted her with his library) is when I was about fifteen years old. A school paper sent me searching the library for books and articles about geotropisms. Because it is such an odd topic, we had to go to the big library downtown in the nearest city. I had never gone there before, mostly because the hours were fairly limited and the area wasn’t the safest. When I walked in, shock and amazement overwhelmed me. Two full stories of books, with a catwalk along the upper story greeted my book-thirsty eyes. My mom and I walked in and I stopped in my tracks with my jaw hanging down to my knees and my eyes as big as dinner plates. Book-lust overcame me! I spent about two hours perusing the library, and only found one reference to geotropisms. I also found my respect for libraries returned and my love for books thoroughly affirmed.
What about you? Have you found yourself in awe of the books in your library? Or do your memories of the library tell a different tale about your life?
(chuckle) “Book-lust”
and yet, I understand exactly what you mean.