I recently read a good piece in Reader’s Digest about an author’s love of the library while she was growing up, how she fell away from that glorious location, and then rediscovered the greatness of libraries later in life. It was a fun read and stirred up some thoughts as I finished the article.
I feel very fortunate in that my mother brought us to the public library in New Ulm every week. When we were young, we’d attend Story Hour on Saturday mornings while Mom ran off to do her grocery shopping. My sisters and I would check out stacks of books and were all aquiver in anticipation of getting them home to begin the devouring process.
Many of us can certainly remember taking out our library card, something we held onto with fierce determination and protection. The librarian, that lady who seemed so much taller than us behind the counter, would put our card in a machine and use it to mark the little cards in the backs of the books with the due date. That sound was magical.
Like the writer of the article I read, I fell away from the library in college (at least for reading for pleasure) until shortly before my kids were born. Life was busy and there seemed to be so many things I wanted to do other than just sit down with a good book. I was still reading, but that mostly involved newspapers, magazines, and comic books.
But since my children appeared, I feel lost if I don’t visit the Owatonna Public Library once a week. That doesn’t mean I always check something out, especially if I have a bunch of books to read, but I can always look for more. There’s just something about wandering among the stacks, searching for that new author or series that will enthrall me for a time.
We’ve all seen the studies that talk about reading to our children and the brain development that goes along with that. I’ve also read plenty of items that talk about the difficulty in low-income areas, how many homes don’t have any books because they can’t afford them. I undertand that; books can get spendy.
But many communities have this wonderful, free resource in a library. Living in Ellendale, we travel to Owatonna for our library. I’m guessing folks in Hartland and Geneva make their way to Albert Lea. And lucky New Richland – a library all their own! I know the library in New Richland has a great support network and people who help it thrive. The great thing about all these libraries is that if they don’t have something you’re looking for, they can almost always find it at another location and procure it for you.
It would be nice if we could take that idea that people who can’t afford to buy books struggle in helping children learn to read and change it. How can we endeavor to help all families find use in their local library? I’m sure every community is different, but I wonder how many interact with local elementary schools to give every child a library card. That would be a start, and hopefully it would help encourage kids to come and check things out. Maybe libraries could even have something in hospitals where they give a card to new parents! It might sound far-fetched, but that also might work.
Every time I’m in the Owatonna library, I see young people in the children’s section, and it fills me with joy. Granted, some of them are on computers playing games, but I love to see a kid walk up to the librarian with a stack of books similar to what I used to get, balancing them without tipping. Or there are times a parent is helping a youngster get some bedtime books for the week, and I recall all those nights of reading to the kids, even if we had to keep getting those same Sandra Boynton or Dr. Seuss books every other time there.
As budgets get cut to libraries, we readers need to fight back. Our society won’t get any better if our next generations don’t read. Cities and schools sometimes seem to look at libraries as easy targets for budget reductions. There are many ways to get kids interested in reading, but all of them involve having books.
I invest much of my yearly school budget in new books for my classroom library. I research what is new and exciting and popular in young adult novels. I also look for exciting types of non-fiction, something kids usually turn their noses up at: “Non-fiction is boring!” Wrong!
And building a buzz about good books is key to the effort. Libraries try to do this by displaying different books to grab attention. When I get new books for my shelf, I try to let the kids know. I recently got some new books because of a contest I won on Twitter, and they barely made it to my shelf before many of them were checked out – success!
I hope that if you haven’t been to a library in awhile, you’ll consider a visit soon. Make use of this wonderful, free resource. Bring your children and grandchildren and help them be excited about reading. If we ever lose our libraries, that would be devastating. Build the future through reading!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is astorgia, which means a lack of interest in one’s children, as in, “The astorgia from the parents made their kids sad when they missed the beginning of the summer reading program.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!