My earliest abiding memory as a child is of being taken to the library by my mother. I could only have been about 4, it was certainly before I went to school. I remember the overwhelming size of the library, the quietness and the mystery of peeping up at towering shelves that seemed as tall as giants.
Whilst my mother took her time choosing the latest romance, I was allowed into the children's section, and I as ran my tiny fingers along the shelves and touched the spines of books a whole new world of adventure opened up before me. I can remember that I was allowed to borrow a book about the adventures of a teddy bear, which looked so much like my own well loved tatty teddy. The book was huge, well, to my 4 year baby arms it seemed so, and I carried it ever so carefully all the way home.
Although I didn't know it at the time, this first visit to the library would spark a life long love of books, and even after many thousands, possibly millions of pages later, that love for books and libraries has never diminished.
Here's my latest read from the library...
Last year I borrowed 135 books from my library
I went on numerous adventures all over the world
I travelled to the past and to the future
I witnessed crimes and murders
Saw kings and queens toppled
Peeped through curtains,
Waited at bus stops,
Traveled by high speed car
Saw love affairs unfold
And read and read and read....until my eyes ached
Saw love affairs unfold
And read and read and read....until my eyes ached
But not only that....
I attended my monthly reading group
I took part in a craft market
I borrowed audio books
I borrowed DVDs
I used a computer
I researched
I made friends
I laughed
Libraries were visited over 265 million times last year
Remember Libraries are not all about books and if we don't make good use our libraries
we lose something very precious
..."I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library"...
Jorge Louis Borge
More about National Libraries Day here
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I enjoyed your post, Jo. The library was a big part of my childhood, too. My local library has been closed for a major refurbishment for months. I can't wait till it's open again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting us know it's National Libraries Day.
Thanks for visiting Helena. Childhood memories are so very vivid, aren't they. I hope your library reopening will be done in style !!
DeleteI had a library ticket of my own from about age 8. I read my way through loads of stuff, suitable and not! Funny, but for years I was trying to recall the name of a detective who was an Australian aborigine, to no avail, until an Anglophile blogger in New England mentioned him.... and there he was, "Boney"! I have loads of books to read, and keep being given more so it is rare that I visit our library. Perhaps I should use it to get rid of my wish list!
ReplyDeleteI know just how you feel Susan, I have shelves full of unread books too and yet there is still something thrilling for me to go the library and come home with a stack of books. I don't always borrow fiction, in fact the library has been really helpful in my WW1 research..
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