The Limitless Magic of Libraries
I was one of those kids who would read anywhere.
My bed? Obviously. The couch? Naturally, often with my legs propped up along the top of the back cushions while lying lengthwise, the book propped on my chest, an inch from my nose. Sometimes my bed would be arranged with the headboard against the corner of the room, creating a triangular hiding spot with the walls and I’d read there, too.
I’d also read on a blanket in the grass, a chaise lounge chair on our “patio” (part of our driveway gated off from view of the street), on our “porch swing” (we didn’t have a spacious porch, it hung from an A-frame type of thing like a swingset) or sitting on the basement steps in front of the fan, because we didn’t have air conditioning in my little kid days. My mother’s ingenious cooling method involved propping a fan at the bottom of the basement steps, aimed upward, sucking the cool downstairs air up into the rest of the house. The other part of this magic trick was to close the house up in the heat of the day and draw all the curtains, only opening the windows at night, when the fan would be moved to the front screen door, pulling in the cool evening air as the night bugs serenaded us with their creaks and chirps.
"I was one of those kids who would read anywhere. My bed? Obviously. The couch? Naturally, often with my legs propped up along the top of the back cushions while lying lengthwise, the book propped on my chest, an inch from my nose."
When I visited my set of grandparents who lived in a beach town, I’d read at the beach, if I wasn’t too busy splashing in Lake Michigan or getting so covered with sand we were like sugar-coated donuts by the time we clambered into the car (luckily for Grandma’s easy clean-up, the seats were vinyl, which was unlucky for us because of the temperature of those seats having baked in the sun all afternoon.)
What I note about this picture is that, for some reason, my sister and I are reading on our tiny back porch, leaning up against a railing probably made out of wrought iron, with a decorative flourish in the middle, even. How can that be comfortable on our bony little eight- and four-year-old spines? But when you’re diving into a world of words, reality falls away, even metal spindles pressed into skin. It’s a mystery why we would sit there, when there were all manner of cozy reading spots to choose from.
I have zoomed in, and squinted, and I don’t know for the life of me which books these are. I do know that the books of my youth mostly came to me from the library.
We grew up mildly poor, especially in our youngest days, our world filled with garage sale clothes, thrift store furniture (expertly “upcycled” by our mother) and a series of used cars that rattled down the road on a wing and a prayer. (I famously drew a picture of the family Ford Pinto with clouds of smoke billowing out of the back, rendered in purple crayon.)
I did own some books, mostly gifts and hand-me-downs. I still have a box set of the Little House on the Prairie books, and for a time, a relative was buying me Nancy Drew in order. Another relative bought me a gorgeous hardcover, illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, both together. I was enthralled by the ribbon bookmark attached to the spine, which at this very moment still marks the spot of the “Jabberwocky” poem, my favorite page to re-visit, then and now.
The only way to satisfy my voracious reading appetite within our budget was our local library, and its shelves upon shelves of children’s books bearing spine stickers indicating particularly hot genres of the time: a blue sticker with a magnifying glass for “Mystery” and a yellow sticker with a horse head outline representing, of course, horse stories. I still remember my delirious joy upon finding a book WITH BOTH HORSE AND MYSTERY STICKERS.
"I did own some books, mostly gifts and hand-me-downs. I still have a box set of the Little House on the Prairie books, and for a time, a relative was buying me Nancy Drew in order. Another relative bought me a gorgeous hardcover, illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass..."
Then I graduated to the Young Adult section, where I plowed through Sweet Valley High books in no particular order (RIP Francine Pascal) and anything by S.E. Hinton after a battered secondhand paperback of The Outsiders knocked my socks off. A book called I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier had an ending that made me gasp aloud and toss the book away from me in shock. I no longer can recall the specifics of that plot twist, but the sense-memory of that moment is embedded in my mind like a shard.
I have resources now, and buy plenty of books–especially from local stores, new authors coming up, local authors–but I will never outgrow the library, either. It’s a different building than the one I grew up with, but every library everywhere sparkles with the magic of discovery and limitless imagination.
I may no longer lean on wrought iron fences, but I still can be found reading books just about anywhere: camping, at the beach, sitting in my outdoor “relax chair” as the family calls it, in the shady grass of my yard in the summer dusk as fireflies wink around me.
Even on the couch with my feet up along the top of the cushions.
