Happy Book Lover's Day!

Where the love of books started for me, may or may not be familiar to most; but, it was better than the ice cream truck when it came to the neighborhood, it was the BookMobile! I grew up a block away from the local public elementary school, where each Saturday morning; rain, shine, or snow, just like the postman, what to some seemed simply as just an enormous bus, drove into the parking lot to sit for hours waiting for the readers of the neighborhood. It was wall to wall, floor to ceiling shelves of books, with small leather benches by the stacks where you could sit as you made your checkout pile. The driver and librarian got to know us frequent flyers and would always greet us by asking which book had been our favorite from last week’s loans and then sharing with us what new selections had been added to the well loved books waiting for a kind and gentle reader. I would go, library card in hand, the library card had this all important feeling, like something you didn’t ever think you would own, complete with a silver plate embossed with your card number. Little did I know as exciting as it was, I would have many cards with embossed numbers, albeit plastic, that would cause me trouble$ later on in life! Yet the excitement of taking your stack of books to the checkout desk and handing your card over, like saying, “yes, I will care for these wonderful stories, I will savor and appreciate every word set upon the pages", lovingly penned with excitement by men and women, some whose prose still line the shelves of school and classroom libraries today!

I would walk home leaning at almost a 45 degree angle, having to look from the sides of the pile to cross the street. I’m sure the neighbors looking out their window thought, there she goes again that silly girl, she won’t be able to read all those books! But alas, I did, and some I read many times over and I loved the stories so much I asked to renew one or two selections the next week; renewing a book was a great commitment for a BookMobile patron. It said I love this story, I promise to cherish it and pay homage to its author and sing its praises to my friends and classmates! Well maybe that's romanticizing it a bit; but to a young book lover armed with a library card; there was no greater commitment.

So began my love of books and realizing what those stories inside the covers do for the reader. We hear they entertain, inform, inspire, and teach; but, I think there are the ones that do much more than that! They sometimes find pieces of us deep down that we didn’t know existed. They sometimes call us to action or send us in a direction that our mind didn't even think to go. Ah, an amazing tale, a favorite book, an old story, heard at a different time in our life, may wake something up that we had no idea was quietly and cautiously dozing or even stubbornly hibernating inside of us.

I’d love to hear about how books have been a part of your life, what they mean to you, or how you found your voice as if it jumped off the pages as you read “that” book. Is there one particular book that has stayed with you? All so long ago I picked it up for the first time and read it and then read it again and again, read it to my children, read it to my classes, and every time Charlotte spun one of those uplifting words about Wilbur it tugs at my heart strings and the ending still has me reaching for a tissue. I wonder if E.B. White knew the timelessness of the story in those pages?