Tuesday, June 7, 2011

a public love affair

I was in 1st grade.  It was that time of the school-week when we had our "library special".  We'd go and hear the school librarian read us a story.  Afterward, they'd set us crazy kids loose so we have a chance to get our "feet wet" with the Dewey Decimal System;  finding a book to take home for the week.

It was routine.  It didn't mean much to me other than a chance to not have to do "real" work.  I guess it was sorta like recess.

Until fate brought me face to face with....

On this particular day, as we did our best to find optimal seating on the floor - selfishly nudging each other while tightly corralling in and around the librarian so as to bring her much too close to death by suffocation, she pulled this out from behind her back.

I can still hear the sound the book made as she slowly opened its cover.  The crinkle of the dust jacket won my heart over instantly.  It was love.  I was hooked.  It was my entrance drug into the world of reading {and libraries}.

When I became a teacher, myself, many years later, I would purpose field trips to our public library.  {I worked in a Christian school which did not have a "functioning" library for elementary aged students.}  I was determined to reproduce that moment for at least one of my students, in my lifetime as a teacher.  I always passionately felt that if a person could learn to love reading, the world was their oyster.  Most learning stems from the knowledge found in that precious black and white print.

The first thing I would make my students' do, as they made their way through the entrance, was to: stop.  And inhale.  Deeply.

"Do you smell that?"  I'd ask.
"Smell, what?"  They'd say.
"Books.  Boys and Girls...that's the beautiful aroma of books.  No where else on earth does such a smell exist."  {Yes, they though I was crazy.  You can ask any of my former students, to this day, and they will have no problem admitting their opinion of me...}

Becoming a mother has only increased this passion of mine.  I want Annaleigh to love getting lost in a world, that for those few short moments on a page, belongs only to her.

So it thrills my soul that Annaleigh loves books.
And it was simply natural timing to introduce her to the place where my very own love affair began.
The library....








Go ahead, sweetheart.  Inhale.  Deeply.  There's nothing like it....


p.s.  this post is linked up over at Time-Warp Wife.
Come join in the fun!

2 comments:

  1. love it! the library is a magical place :) I take my kiddos there every week. I love the photos you got of her first experience - so cute!

    ReplyDelete

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul. -Unknown