Library Lover

"To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero 


So here I am,  many weeks late to a party that a certain author started with a brazen attack on the Library system, and you know what? The dude is deluded, so deluded in fact that the idea of doing a whole blog post on the man seems a waste, so instead I think I need to tell you why I love my Library so much and what it brings to me and my family.

That OK? Cool.

Right, well to start with we have very little income to hammer out on books and yet books are a major draw all of the time. Books contain words, words have power; the power to educate, reduce stress or sadness, inform, amuse, excite, arouse, enrage, alter mood, bring hope and transform. 

Books are incredible. The more books you read the more incredible you can be.

Now we have (at current count) eleven bookcases full of books. They are stuffed full of love and information in equal measure but realistically we simply don't have enough of the bastards! We always need more! That is where the Library comes into play you see. We are Library mad! We are there at least once a week, normally twice and leave with anywhere between (but never less than ) thirty to fifty books each trip. Those books are devoured! Leapt on by hungry minds and consumed! Every smile extracted from them, every line studied and every picture adored for many a minute before the page is turned, the story done, the next one loaded in the reading gun!

We love the books and take them back and get more and start the cycle all over again. Sure, sometimes one goes missing or is late but on the whole we keep our noses clean and our minds engaged. 

It's the best way to be!

If we faced the horror of Libraries dying then it would rob us of all the incredible potential that they hold, each isle a river of gold waiting to enrich our lives! How would we cope? Well I suppose we'd use the net more or raid my mother's shelves or second hand book stores but we'd never get enough an that would also bring the problem of space... Or lack there of. 

It would be hellish and a robbery of our children's right to wonder!

Libraries should always stay open, people should feel drawn to them (as they are) and enter with each step taking you towards something you wanted to try and something you didn't know you wanted to until you saw it there in front of you. 

Don't talk about shutting Libraries, how they are for 'middle class people' or that they are easily replaced by the internet or book shops. They aren't, couldn't be, never should be shut. Closing Libraries is like shutting the door on knowledge. It's switching out the light of hope for lonely old people who read because they have no one left to talk too late at night. It's stealing kids' futures.

Thanks for reading.