BTT: Libraries

Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. So …

What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you?
Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?


The earliest memory I have of being in a library is actually pretty clear, though I know for sure that it wasn't the first time I was in one.
It was the school library (a double demountable building with green, industrial school carpeting) and I was in kindergarten. We were sitting on the floor off to the side of the library (the shelves were behind us) and the librarian was reading us a picture book. The book was about a young girl named Rebecca who found a dinosaur egg inside a fallen hollow tree in her yard (or maybe a farm - if anyone can remind me what book this is, by the way, I'd really love it). I remember the librarian looking up over the top of the book at me and saying that I could borrow that book this week because my name was Rebecca too. I'm not quite sure when this was - it was very eary on, but clearly long enough into the year for the librarian to know me well enough to know what a kick I would get out of that.
I didnt start going to the public library until I was older - about nine or ten - and even then we didn't go very often. Being the only reader in the house meant that it was easier to use the school library (plus friendly librarians who bought me in books from home - yes, I was very lucky in my librarians) than to arrange constant back and forths to the library. It is only in the last few years (since I left school) that I have rediscovered the public library. I do, however, remember that my mother had a small, shiny fleuro green clipboard with a list of all the Babysitter Club books and their numbers in it. I would cross them off as I borrowed them ... I try to blame my mother for my booklist/list in general obsession but she wouldn't go for it.
As for funny library stories, I can't really think of any. I'm sure there are some but nothing is coming to mind.

2 comments :

Confuzzled Shannon said...

I use to keep a booklist but stopped somewhere along the way. Sometimes I wish I had still kept it.

Rebecca Johnson said...

Well I kept a booklist for the library when I was younger, as I said, but then didn't for a long time. About three years ago I started it up again by tracking what I read and when, creating a year list AND a master list. Every time I come across a book that I know I've read in the past then I just add it to the list.

I'm a little OCD at times so the listing appeals to that side of me, but I still enjoy it all the same - I get such a buzz over uncovering a book that I'd forgotten I'd read.