book love

The Waupun Public Library smelled of books and magic.

I can still imagine that smell—vaguely institutional, with a distinctive tang—it hit me the same way every time I walked through those doors as a child. Maybe it rose silently from the paper and the crisp slick cellophane that cloaked the books and wore down to a matte finish after years of handling. Maybe those stacks were leaving off book molecules in the air for us to breathe.

I loved wandering the place, craning my neck to see the titles. The feeling of reading fluency carried power—the knowledge that each book held a world about which I would know nothing until I opened the cover and those other worlds flowed out and carried me with them to new and exciting places far away from my home. I loved the abundance that came from understanding I could pick any book, and add it to my stack to dig into later.

I loved my library card—it was cardboard with a small piece of metal crimped to it and stamped with my name . That card made me feel like a grown person with responsibilities. I galloped through Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and the Chronicles of Narnia, and Little Women. By middle school I had moved on to The Good Earth and The Pearl and Wuthering Heights and Crime and Punishment. I knew from how the adults responded that a voracious reader was a good thing to be.

I come by my bibliophilia honestly through my mom, a legendary power-user of the library. My mom carried home armfuls of thick Civil War histories, books of photographs, memoirs and biographies, and other always-nonfiction titles. Sometimes her borrowings would be secured through interlibrary loan which seemed like still more magic to me (there are other libraries, full of other books?!). The books would live in piles next to the couch in our farmhouse; towers that toppled when she chose a new one from the bottom of the stack. The stacks would be replaced, and I would likely go along for my own books.

Libraries full of books have opened my mind. Soothed my anxious heart. Taught me what school did not. And they have kept the the fires in my soul lit, inspiring me to lead a more authentic, loving life.