Apr
A Library of Memories
In honor of National Library Week, I’d like to do something a little bit different with today’s “Reading Tuesday.” It requires everyone to play along… Consider it our collective way of saying “thank you” to librarians everywhere!
Okay, here goes. What is one of your most special library memories from when you were a child (the more detailed, the better)?
Mine? It would be the Northvale Public Library in Northvale, New Jersey. It was an old house-like building that I remember being my favorite place to go. I remember the smell, the rule about being quiet (I was little), and the nice ladies who read stories to me. I remember taking one of my all-time favorite storybooks off the shelf for the first time in that library. And, to this day, THE GIVING TREE has a very special place in my heart.
In fact, it was this memory that made the notion of a librarian as a lead character in my series so attractive, and why I had such a good time helping Tori create a very special children’s room in the Sweet Briar Public Library.
Your turn.
~Elizabeth
April 13th, 2010 at 4:30 am
I remember when I first got my library card and had to stand on tip toes to reach the desk to get it. I felt like I was a grown-up because now I can take out my own books. I remember the librarian helping me looking through the card catalog to find the location of the books I wanted. She gave me a tour of the library and the section I would be “hanging” out in and once I found my books, I sat down and read and read and read until it was time for me to go. There I was standing on the line to take out my five oversized books and felt so proud. One of my first volunteer jobs was as a library assistant.
April 13th, 2010 at 6:54 am
I feel like a doublemint commercial here…two for the price of one.
When I was in third grade, I had card for the larger town we used to live in. So on Saturdays when my parents went to the bar, I went to the library until it closed then sat in the car and read. That’s where I found A Wrinkle in Time. And a Phantom Tollbooth. Escapist fiction, hit the spot.
When I was in middle school, as one of the geek crowd, I hadn’t learned how to deal with the social scene (not sure I have yet…) so lunch hours were spent in the library shevling books, opening boxes of new books (heaven) and gettng them cataloged for the shelves. This is the library I tried to read from A to Z. I found a lot I didn’t like, but I also read Pilgrims Progress. As a tween, I probably didn’t understand a lot of it, but I got that our choices make a difference in how we survive the crap thrown at us.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:13 am
I remember being in a weekly reading group at our library when I was about 5yrs old. My mom would take me and we would sit in a circle in the corner on a hardwood floor. And for some reason one book stands out about a little boy who couldn’t swim and someone pushed him in the pool (swimming is not my forte’ so I’m guessing that’s why!)
April 13th, 2010 at 7:25 am
There was a local writer named James Boyd who was apparently a quite popular historical novelist back in the 30′s. His friends included Sherwood Anderson and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who’d often come to Weymouth, Boyd’s big house at the top of Connecticut Avenue, to dry out.
The Southern Pines public library had the “Boyd Room” which was an exact re-creation of Boyd’s study, complete with huge desk, big globe, bookshelves full of leather bound books lining the walls…I wish I had a place like that to write now.
Boyd’s house is now the Weymouth Center for the Arts (http://www.weymouthcenter.org/) , and the old library’s the water department. The new library’s bigger, better lighted, better stocked…but it doesn’t have a Boyd Room.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:09 am
LOVE these!!! Wow, keep them coming!
April 13th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I vividly remember shelving books for our school library in sixth grade. I’ve no idea how many books I found like that, but I DO know that’s the year my interest in reading took off.
JD, that’s amazing. Wish I could have seen the Boyd Room (which is one transposition away from being the Body Room, and that would also be a cool place to write.)
I lost an interesting library in North-Central Illinois. In the late 90s, I traveled quite a bit, covering meetings for a trade association. I always made time to explore the little towns I visited. In one, I found a wonderful old library, with miles and miles of wood. It was Gothic, in a river town, but beyond that…I have no idea where it is.
Hope to find it again someday.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Joe — maybe it wasn’t a real library? Maybe appeared for your use at the time and now is somewhere else? So if you needed it – it would appear again….
(Have I been reading too much Percy Jackson or what….)
One more – but I think it’s only in hard cover so I may borrow it rather than buy it.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Wow, this is a good one! Our library was a branch of the Hutchinson County library in Texas. It was (and still is) located in the basement of the courthouse in the tiny little town where I grew up. Our librarian was Mrs. Parsons. I loved that woman to death. Between her and my mom, I read my way through most everything they had, both as a kid and as an adult. Neither Mrs. Parsons nor my mom ever tried to censor my reading, so I pretty much had free rein to choose. That’s how I found Grace Livingston Hill and Betty MacDonald. I recently heard from mutual friends that Mrs. Parsons is now 100 years old. Still keeps her own house and works her own garden and is “sharp as a tack”.
The last time I was at the library there was about a decade ago. They have of course moved things around to allow growth, but it’s still a wonderful place to me.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
My elementary school library was a good place, but the librarian was the special part of going there. She let us select books, even if they weren’t on our grade-level shelves, at least after we were in 3rd grade. She’s the person who pointed out the ‘horsey’ books (Billie and Blaze, the Marguerite Henrys’ and Walter Farleys’, etc), and all the other animal books I loved (and love now). When I picked a book with the title “The Swamp Fox” she knew it wasn’t about a fuzzy red critter, but she assured me that it would surprise me and I should read it anyway because I’d really like it. It turned out to be about Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War hero, and she was right, I enjoyed it and from reading that book, my interest in history blossomed.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
I hope you find that library, Joe. Sounds wonderful!!
Shel, you should track Mrs. Parsons down and write her a letter. Tell her how she influenced your passion for books! I bet it would mean a lot to her.
Kate, very cool story for how your interest in history took off. Very cool!
April 13th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
When i was little I belonged to the “Billy Bookworm Club”. Our Library was about 8 blocks away. My older sisters and I walked there once a week in the summertime. (We didn’t need to go during school months because our school had a great library.) Every time I finished reading a book my BBC card got a punch. At the end of the summer I remember getting a pencil and a bookmark for having my card completely punched. And was I thrilled with that pencil and bookmark – it was like gold!! The children’s library was on the 2nd floor of a wooden building and it too had a smell. Sometimes I still look for that smell taking out a book and putting the binding to my nose. I haven’t found – maybe our new concrete library buildings are too new. It could have been from a 100 yr old wooden building; it could have been from the sticky hands of children who touched it before me; it could have been from binding glue. Not sure but I haven’t forgotten it.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:31 am
I remember when I was a senior in high school, I was the library assistant. Had to work with the old card catalog. WOW times have changed. I loved to roam around the book shelves and smell the old books and take a peak at books I would not normally have ever opened up to see what few little facts I could learn. I am always amazed at the AMOUNT of books. I also remember when my life was simplier and not as hectic as it is now. My kids were small and loved to go to the library and we would sit and read the picture books and they had some toys there also, so I could read a little too. I also remember my mother coming home with like 3-5 books on Saturdays and she would wip right through them. I could never sit down long enought to read when I was younger. I hope that when I am done with school and my reading doesn’t consist of reading text books, I can enjoy more reading and just RELAX. Oh, I know what I will have to read, all the medical journals and research articles.