Today's Booking Through Thursday asks: whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. (There’s no way my parents could otherwise have kept up with my book habit when I was 10.) So … What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library? (Inspired by Booksplease)
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I feel certain that the public library was about the first place my parents found when they moved from Carbondale, Illinois to Geneva, New York when I was but 15 months old. When I was just learning to read, the tiny library had one bookshelf devoted to children's books. I can remember squatting at the shelf, picking out books, as my mother chose her books in the library's remaining 20 or so bookshelves. I loved everything about the library, from the gentlemen reading the newspapers in the leather chairs to the ornate woodwork on the banisters.
When I was about nine or 10, the basement of the library was turned into an entire children's section. Now this was pure bliss. My mother could browse upstairs while I browsed all by myself downstairs. I remember when I was about 11, looking for books in the card catalog about adolescence. I must have read this word somewhere and understood that I was entering the stage, so I thought I should check out books that would enlighten me. No doubt I found some.
What do you remember about your childhood library? See more posts at Booking Through Thursday.
6 comments:
I still remember the actual floor plan to everything in the library from my childhood even though now it is a church.
The library was a kind of "safe haven," wasn't it, where our parents could let us be independent.
I also had a feeling of being in heaven with loads of children's books.
That's what makes libraries so cool right now- the children's sections are larger, have better books, and there's lots of programming for the kids. I think it's great!
This question brought back memories of my own gradual shift from children's books to young adult and adult books. Libraries were a big part of my life when I was young.
Great answer!
I remember feeling anxious when I first browsed the adult fiction section at my hometown library. I was afraid someone would tell me I was too young to read those book! But of course no one did, and I felt very grown up.
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