Loving the Library

I have fond memories of going to the library as a child. I can remember the old library building with its pretty fountain in the parking area and a jungle gym between the children’s and adults’ sections. I never quite understood why anyone would go to the library only to play on the jungle gym, though. I remember having four envelope-type cards—this was the ‘Eighties—three for fiction and one for non-fiction. I remember checking out the Little Men and Little Miss books. And I remember moving to the new library building and getting a barcoded library card with an increased borrowing limit—what joy!

My brothers were never bookworms; they quite liked the library’s jungle gym. When I was in high school, I sometimes borrowed books on their cards too. I suppose I have always had a burning desire to read All The Books, and only borrowing six books at a time put a crimp in my plans. I also regularly read all my mother’s library books, sometimes before she had a chance to. This was not always a good thing. There are books that I should have waited to read. I am stricter about this with my own children—even when it means waiting not-so-patiently until my girls can meet Lizzie and Darcy. (Have I already planned a girls’ night with the BBC miniseries? Maybe. Haven't you?)

I have always been a voracious reader, but not always a discerning one. In primary school I loved Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and the Sweet Valley series. I also loved the Little House series and I can remember borrowing the Narnia series from my school’s library. In grade seven I was made one of the library monitors, and was allowed to play librarian and check out books for people. In another life, maybe I would have become a librarian.

In high school I had a Stephen King phase, and then a crime fiction phase, and then went straight into a Thomas Hardy phase; don’t ask me how I made that leap. I don’t think I understood him properly at seventeen; maybe it’s time to revisit his books. I will confess to a season of Mills and Boon as well; don’t hold it against me, I was young and no one had yet pointed me towards Miss Austen. I also encountered Emily Brontë for the first time as a teenager—I read my mother’s university copy of Wuthering Heights to pieces. I still have it on a bookshelf somewhere, though it has been years since I last read it. I’m not in a hurry to spend time with Heathcliff and Cathy again.

Going to the library as an adult is a different experience. Is there more twaddle, or is it that I’m just more aware of the twaddle? I have vetoed so many of my children’s book selections that they are hyper-aware of potential twaddle. Many of the books I remember loving at their ages are no longer on the shelves. The library now has just one section of shelves for children’s classics.

Charlotte Mason says that “the most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.” Even before I heard of Charlotte Mason, I knew that I wanted to raise my children to be readers. They all got their first library cards before their first birthdays, and we made library visits a regular part of our routine. The librarians know us by name, and when things started getting back to normal after covid, told us they missed seeing us at the library. We had stopped going for a time, when they didn’t allow children inside due to the lockdown restrictions. We went back after one of the librarians bumped into my husband at the shops and asked about us.

I do wonder, sometimes, whether it’s still worth going to the library. I hardly ever take out books for myself. (I feel too guilty about my mountain-sized To Be Read pile at home.) But they also don’t have the books I want to read now. I think I’m trying to make up for earlier bad reading choices. Now I don’t want to read All The Books, only All The Books On The Ambleside Online Booklist.

I mean, it isn’t as though we have a shortage of books at home. We are continually adding to our home library. I’m quite sure the books multiply by themselves when no one’s looking. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) One of the benefits of a home library is that I know there won’t be any junk on the shelves. On the negative side, moving house is a pain. You don’t know how many books you have (or how many double copies you’ve somehow acquired) until you have to pack them up.

Also, the library is closed during loadshedding*. I don’t know why they don’t have a generator, or can’t manually check out books when there’s no power. They won’t even let you in to return or renew during loadshedding. I hate returning books through the slot; on several occasions we’ve been told we still have books checked out after we returned them through the slot.

Oh, who am I kidding. We won’t stop going to the library. Someone has to keep checking out the good books so that they’ll stay in circulation. One day I hope, my children will look back on their childhood library visits with the same fondness that I do, and they’ll be building the same kind of library love with their children.

And if the library has too much twaddle, well, then, they can always use Mom’s Library, and I will finally fulfill my dream of becoming a librarian. Maybe by then I will even have read most of what’s on my To Be Read pile. A mom can dream ...

*Loadshedding: planned power cuts to reduce the load on the grid when demand for power exceeds the available supply.