I'm going to tell you about a place, a very special place... so just forget your everyday life, forget your problems and worries, your mortgage, bills and loans, the laundry, the weeds growing in your lawn... and come with me... to the place that takes you... to somewhere else, wherever you want to go... a place called Libraryland.
Michael Gorman wrote eloquently about the mission of libraries in his book, Our Enduring Values. He noted that libraries are "the focal point of a community, ... the place remembered fondly by children when grown, the solace of the lonely and the lost, the place in which all are welcome, and a source of power through knowledge." In my life, libraries have been all those things and more...
I guess it all started when I was three...
Michael Gorman wrote eloquently about the mission of libraries in his book, Our Enduring Values. He noted that libraries are "the focal point of a community, ... the place remembered fondly by children when grown, the solace of the lonely and the lost, the place in which all are welcome, and a source of power through knowledge." In my life, libraries have been all those things and more...
I guess it all started when I was three...
I could blame my father, for letting me sit on his knee and read the comics -- what he called "the funnies" -- every morning.
I could blame my mother for buying Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedias and National Geographic magazines and even -- the Horror! -- Reader's Digests!
I could blame my kindergarten teacher, Miss Garfield, for letting me read aloud to the rest of the class. I remember the experience of it to this day. It was my first favorite:
The Little Engine That Could!
You know: "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."
Wow, what a rush! All those little faces focused on me... no, not on me. They were focused on the book I was holding, on the story I was telling... on the words I was reading...
I could blame my mother for buying Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedias and National Geographic magazines and even -- the Horror! -- Reader's Digests!
I could blame my kindergarten teacher, Miss Garfield, for letting me read aloud to the rest of the class. I remember the experience of it to this day. It was my first favorite:
The Little Engine That Could!
You know: "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."
Wow, what a rush! All those little faces focused on me... no, not on me. They were focused on the book I was holding, on the story I was telling... on the words I was reading...
And that's how I got hooked... soon I ran through the stash of books at home and the stuff at school and the Scholastic Book Fair wasn't coming around for another year and I was getting pretty desperate... reading the backs of cereal boxes... the horoscopes, Dear Abby and Ann Landers and EVEN -- yes -- the WANT ADS!
Until my older brother -- you know, it's always those older brothers with their superior knowledge of the mean streets and back alleys who know just the place to go -- well, he turned me on to a place where I could get all the stuff I wanted... for FREE!
Yeah, that's how they sink their claws in and indoctrinate you into the life -- by giving it to you for free...
Until my older brother -- you know, it's always those older brothers with their superior knowledge of the mean streets and back alleys who know just the place to go -- well, he turned me on to a place where I could get all the stuff I wanted... for FREE!
Yeah, that's how they sink their claws in and indoctrinate you into the life -- by giving it to you for free...
Christopher Lasch, the American historian, wrote that the family in a "haven in a heartless world." I believe that quote applies to libraries as well. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, where the smell of beached alewives mingled with the sulfur fumes of the coke ovens, I spent hours at this branch of the public library at 9055 South Houston Avenue.
I wandered the aisles, running my fingers over the spines of books. I would close my eyes and stop at random to pull one off the shelf. I'd crack it open, begin to read and I'd slip away to an entirely different world. Reading took me to so many incredible places: to the wide-open, untamed prairies with Laura Ingalls Wilder; to the Island of the Blue Dolphins, to Belmont Park in New York City, where I came racing out of the far turn and down the homestretch with Walter Farley's Black Stallion. Reading took me into the dark, dark places where the original vampire, Dracula, lurked.
I found many a wonderful read with this wandering serendipity... but other times I needed guidance, times when I was looking for... something, anything that would transport me through time and space to anywhere but where I was. Although I didn't yet know the title or the author or even necessarily the subject matter... I just knew I wanted a book that would take me somewhere... and I would turn to a librarian to help me find it.
I found many a wonderful read with this wandering serendipity... but other times I needed guidance, times when I was looking for... something, anything that would transport me through time and space to anywhere but where I was. Although I didn't yet know the title or the author or even necessarily the subject matter... I just knew I wanted a book that would take me somewhere... and I would turn to a librarian to help me find it.
And when the children's section couldn't satisfy my craving, I started poking around the adult section. A librarian once asked my mom if I could read "those book." (Obviously referring to the ones with the questionable themes and content for one so young -- in other words, the ones with sex scenes.) Mom, ever the enabler and totally misunderstanding the question, informed the woman that I had the reading level of a high school student and was perfectly capable of reading those books.
Reading great literature -- and copious amounts of good literature -- and even reading the literary equivalent of bubblegum -- made me a stronger reader, a critical thinker and it also helped form me as a writer... because when I didn't find the story I wanted to read, I started writing them myself...
Reading great literature -- and copious amounts of good literature -- and even reading the literary equivalent of bubblegum -- made me a stronger reader, a critical thinker and it also helped form me as a writer... because when I didn't find the story I wanted to read, I started writing them myself...
(Sections of this post first appeared in remarks Joanne gave at the Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author award presentation and were previously published in the ILA Reporter.)
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