The Library

The library and I have a love hate relationship. I walk into the library and I really am like the cliche "kid in a candy shop". I go straight to the juvenile section with the kids and start pouring over the shelves. "Oh, this looks good!" "I love this author!" " I've always wanted to read this!" But it wasn't always this way.

When I was young, the library kind of scared me! I remember going to the library with my best friend, Sandra, when we were around 6 years old. It was the big launch day for the summer reading program and they had a weird maze in the dark that was supposed to be a dark forest. I remember coming out on the other side of that maze with my face painted like a woodland animal. The whole thing was a mysterious, foreign experience because I never went to the library before! Was this what it was always like? My friend Sandra on the other hand was old friends with the library and won every year's contest for best bookmark she had drawn. I remember her 1976 bookmark had a colonial man in a tri corn hat and a book (also in a tri corn hat) sitting down for tea together.

When I was in 5th grade and living in Ohio at my Grandma's house in the country, the book mobile would stop right in front of her house. A whole bus filled with books! Right at the front door! I loved to read, but I read my own, familiar books that I knew and loved and read over and over. I remember being uneasy by some of the covers of the books and the titles. I felt like it was a big risk and dangerous. I didn't have anyone helping me choose or suggest books to me. I don't even remember the driver/librarian being there. I felt all alone with strangers. I finally checked out Freaky Friday.

I remember book fairs in the library in 6th grade and having that frustrating feeling of not knowing what to pick. I remember ordering lots of kitten posters, but not a lot of books! (My favorite kitten poster was a white kitten on an all pink background. I glued, yes, I said glued, that poster to my closet door because I couldn't find tape.)

In high school, I remember going to the big city library and checking out George Orwell, Chaim Potek and Edgar Alan Poe. I remember reading Poe in my bedroom on a Saturday afternoon and hearing an odd noise. I had a large sky light window and there was a big crow tapping away at the window with his big black beak! Quoth the raven, nevermore, indeed!

When L-15 was a toddler I would take her to the library's story time and we would check out books and books and books! It was so fun! I finally felt at home in the library! When P-11 was 3 years old he had speech therapy twice a week with the local school district's speech program. The school was just down the street from a branch of the county library. The other kids and I would go to the library twice a week, every week, while he was in class. When the kids got a little older, I discovered I could request books online and pick them up from the check out counter! I would go crazy ordering books for homeschooling studies and come home heavy laden. When P-11 graduated from that speech program, I tried to keep up with the library trips, but it wasn't as convenient. The routine wasn't there and it was easy to forget when books were due. I contributed lots of money to the library fund, to say the least!

So, after thinking about how many books I could have purchased from Amazon instead of paying late fines, I stopped going to the library all together! Over the past few years, I have tried, but the "donations" kept increasing as I would check out 40 books and then forget to return them on time.

Well, I'm trying again. My kids were *begging* me to take them to the library. Begging! How could I say no to a library trip? So here is our haul:

For M-9
*Various Box Car Children books
*Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep by Eleanor Farjeon
*Miss Suzy's Easter Surprise

For P-11
*The first four books in the Warriors series. This series is about cats...I haven't read them, but I have heard from trustworthy friends that their kids love them.

For C-13
*Warriors (they take turns reading them. I don't recommend that method. We should have checked out duplicates. It would have saved me from some refereeing.)
*A load of books on Connecticut for a presentation

For L-15
*Gathering Blue and *Messenger by Lois Lowry We just finished reading The Giver and L-15 saw that it is a loose trilogy, so we were anxious to read them. We weren't disappointed! I really liked Messenger's archetypes.
*A Little House of Their Own by Celia Wilkins is a book in the Caroline series. We have enjoyed all of the "extra" Little House books about Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, grandmother and great grandmother!
*Fairest and *Ever by Gail Levine

For me:
*The Golden Key and *The Light Princess by George MacDonald
*Roverandom and *Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien (Both the MacDonald books and the Tolkien books are short fairy tales.)
*The Best Kind of Different: Our Family's Journey With Asperger's Syndrome by Shonda Shilling (Funny coincidence, eh? Which is why I picked it up.)

I will return and report that these books were returned. On. Time.