[photo: from the book collection of one of the oldest Protestant churches in southern Spain]
When I was little, I loved going to the library. The public library was just across a non-major street from my elementary school. Once every few weeks, we’d walk over there. Initially we would listen to a story from the short-haired librarian whose soft, low voice gave me goosebumps and just made you want to be quiet. (Side note: I wonder if she’s still working there... I might have to make a trip.)
Later, we were released to pick out books to read. I knew exactly where to go:
The Boxcar Children. Once I finished those, I headed for the Nancy Drew series. After I finished the Nancy Drew series, I meandered around the Nancy Drew area. In fourth grade, my school bought another building farther away from the library and my library visits mostly ended. Which was okay, because I was a little lost after having read most of the books in the few sections I frequented.
Where do you gravitate when you enter a library or a bookstore? My mom makes a beeline for the magazines, as she is a visual reader and likes to SEE what she’s reading about. Some people hit up the music section. Especially around high school. I definitely hit up the music/ DVD section in high school. For awhile, I would browse the theology/ faith section, and later the psychology area.
In recent days, I have found myself a little bit lost when I enter the library. When I take my two tutoring kids, we go to the Spanish section and then to the easy children’s books. Today, however, was different. Today I went to the library alone. I didn’t have anything on hold, and there was no Spanish section. (Seriously?! No Spanish section?)
I found myself perusing the recent releases, and later the poetry and fiction sections, but I didn’t find anything I wanted to check out except
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendack. The section I wanted to go to simply does not exist at my local library. Or any library for that matter.
If I could create a section full of books I wanted to read, it would not be brimming with Nancy Drew mysteries or even Sherlock Holmes mysteries (which I recently devoured with great gusto and remembered why I am severely near-sighted.) No, if I could create a section of books, I would fill it with books that are strikingly beautiful. Fictional stories like
The Help or
Anne of Green Gables or maybe even a few mysteries or nonfictional stories of people on journeys like
Eat, Pray, Love. Books that make me laugh out loud by authors like Anne Lamott and Spanish and English children’s stories. Literature for adolescents, such as
Seed Folk. I’d fill this section with books that I could sit down and read until my eyes hurt and my head spun from being transported to another place and time and then coming back to reality; and I’d fill it with books that made me slow down to digest each tiny bite of wisdom like
The Novice by Thich Naht Hanh or
Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr. Of course I’d intersperse some pop psychology or sociology like
The Blue Zones and some poetry like that of Ted Kooser; but mostly, I’d want to read stories. Beautiful stories. Like
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers or
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
So. There is no section like this in the library. That is okay. I will go about weaving a section with epic tales of
Narnia, children’s books like
Habría Que and
The Shadow Spinner, and more that I have yet to discover...
