Love of Libraries

Few things bring me back to childhood like books. I was shy, and I loved reading, and as a kid, I had a love affair with my town’s library. I can picture the layout of Colville’s library to this day, and my inner self longs to go back there and be that little girl, standing in front of all those books. I had my favourites—obscure kids’ books whose titles tickle at the back of my mind, sometimes coalescing into something searchable on google, most of the time eluding me entirely. I was big into fantasy and into mystery, and if you combined the two, I was in heaven. I ate up old Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, Vicki Barr, Bobbsey Twins, Happy Hollisters, and more. Phyllis Whitney’s young adult suspense drew me in too. As I grew older, biographies and histories and romantic suspense mysteries, but always, the books of my childhood were there. I never outgrew YA lit, young or old, and I credit my love affair with libraries from an early age for that.

Up the steps, through the door, and to the left were stacks, regular fiction, I think. The main desk of the librarian in front of me. A table to my right and the wide entrance into the kids’ area. Into the kids’ area and turn left immediately to start at the A’s. There—my favourite shelf, filled with L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. All of them checked out by me over and over again, especially The Emerald City of Oz and The Lost Princess of Oz. I had to kneel to look at them. I spent a lot of time on my knees gazing reverentially at rows of books, trying to determine which ones I’d take home with me that day (I still do, but now I like to *own* them, so my kneeling is perfected in bookstores). Stand and follow the wall-inset shelving to the next wall, but then it broke to a door leading into grown-up land. You had to skip that and go to the back wall, where you wound up between a short stack jutting into the room and the books on the walls to the side and behind it. I know this picture makes no sense to you, I would have to draw it to adequately explain it, but I can picture it, I can walk it. I loved being in this corner because it was enclosed by books. I’d sit and have books on three sides of me and towering over my head, and I could glance out and see more books and brighter light and people. Here—Astrid Lindgren. I owned Pippi Longstocking, but this was the Bill Bergson series. Lesser known. Out of print. Impossible for me to find. Today, I can find copies, but I can’t afford them. I want copies, preferably old library copies in hardcover with their plastic protections over the dustjacket. I’m not buying collectibles, I’m buying memories. But these memories come at too dear a price for now. Maybe someday.

Over there—the Thompson continuation of the Oz series. I read some with trepidation and never enjoyed them as much as the Baum originals.

Everywhere—the one-offs, the lesser knowns. Many books before my time, before my parents’ time, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that favorite book over there with its idyllic setting and its brave young heroine pre-dated my parents by a good ten years. I just knew it painted a world I liked. This shaped me in ways so intrinsic they are hard to define. I learned words and concepts and occupations and ideals of a multitude of eras and cultures without even realizing I was learning it. To this day, I can be shocked by someone not knowing something that to me seems incredibly basic. Then I remember, I learned it by reading some obscure kids’ book.

It was a perfect spent youth, in retrospect. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I can picture each of my school libraries as well: Aster Elementary’s is vague and tastes like Dr. Seuss and Put Me In The Zoo (the book I learned to read on in kindergarten). Hofstetter Elementary’s draws me to one particular section where I once found a book that I’d swear had the words “green,” “lacquered,” and “clock.” It was one of those anonymous mysteries where I obviously have the name wrong because I can’t find it anywhere. I read it several times in 4th and 5th grade, but by 6th, I couldn’t find it any more. I couldn’t remember the actual title or the author, so card catalogs were no help. I remembered *where* it was, and I remember looking and looking to no avail, reading through books with unrelated titles in the off-chance I was horribly wrong on the title. I never found it, but I still sometimes dream I’m standing in front of that western wall of books reading title by title by title. It’s a tactile memory, full of a grade-schooler’s interpretations of what something green-lacquered was and the vague recollections of the feel of the book, knowing that I’d recognize it when I saw it. The Junior High library was odd, with its center-set presence between the hallways with no walls, only short stacks, so you could see all around. I still found treasures there, books only I checked out in the three years we spent in its halls. The High School’s library memories are more centered around friends and gathering. I didn’t check out much from that library that I remember. But I remember spending mornings before school at a table with Yvonne and Sarah and Eric and others.

I am happiest surrounded by books. It’s no wonder that when I went to the University of Washington, my safe place was not my dorm room, but Suzzallo Library. Odegaard was all right, with its modern look and bright lights and stacks of books, but Suzzallo was incredible; gorgeous architecture. I walked into heaven the day I walked into Suzzallo, and in the basement, I found my heart’s content – the children’s literature stacks. Dim, musty, and crammed with tall stacks of all the books from childhood I could remember and then some. If I wanted to hide, I would hide down there with a stack of memories at a corner table. It was quiet and peaceful. If I wanted to observe, I’d hit the stacks of medieval lit upstairs. Brighter and busier but still Suzzallo. I would find a book to fit the mood and fit myself in at a personal carrel or a chair in the corner and read and watch and listen.

I’m sure there are secrets to Suzzallo I never discovered, and I need to go back and find them. I’d go back to the Colville Public Library, but I’m afraid it is so changed I would be too disappointed.

These thoughts leave me happy and melancholy, content and full of longing, peaceful and disappointed all at the same time. Do we ever become what we thought we would be?  And would we want it if we did?