Without the books I found in the library I would never be a writer. I read anything and everything, and somehow the stories in my own head became something I could commit to paper.
Every other week my dad would take me and my sister to the library in town. We would get through the door and I would turn left to the children’s area, he would turn right.
Now, we’re talking the seventies and eighties, so this was an old-fashioned library with floor to near ceiling grand bookcases full of musty old books. In the grown up’s side, ‘my dad’s side’, there were hundreds, thousands, millions (I was sure it looked like millions!) of books that I would look at with jealousy. Science Fiction was my dad’s favorite. He loved Star Trek, Blakes Seven, Doctor Who, and he took me to see Star Wars in 1977 (he went ‘for me’ apparently – seriously Dad, we could see right through that!)
I was happy over in the child’s section until I ran out of books. I only had 6 children’s tickets but that was okay, I devoured every single Enid Blyton I could at a very young age, Willard Price, moved onto Narnia and Little Women. By the time I was twelve, I had more or less read my way through every single book available in that children’s area.
Then Dad said I could use one of his adult tickets. :O
OMG, I was a kid in a sweetshop. I could choose anything I wanted from the mysteries of the dark wood cabinets. I knew exactly what I wanted to read and where I wanted to start.
I picked up the first Tolkien book in the Ring trilogy and I fell in love. I know I didn’t understand half the intricacies of the story, but I do know I found the one thing I loved, Heroic Bromance ™. I fell in love with Sam’s love for Frodo, I fell in love with the fact both would sacrifice themselves for the journey and Sam for Frodo. I fell in love with Strider. I read all three books and I cried at the end of book 3. I was probably 13, just starting Senior School (UK version of High School). I have never re-read these books and I never will. They are a shining moment in my own journey to where I am today.
Have the chance of winning 3 ebooks from my backlist by commenting below – what book from your childhood will you remember forever?
Inspiration – feel free to share 🙂
I loved the Nancy Drew series with my favorite being The Bungalow Mystery.
I have spent many enjoyable hours in libraries, starting from when I was in third grade and I was permitted to go across the street to the grade 4-6 building to get books from their library.
I have never heard about “library tickets” before your article, and then just yesterday read about them again in a book by Clare London. Is this a British thing where you can only take out a certain number of books?
We used to be given cardboard tickets – like slips – that we handed to the librarian and they kept them until we brought the book back… I think they were replaced by plastic twenty or so years ago 🙂
Ah, interesting. In schools here (back many moons ago) the librarian kept the card for each book and we signed our name when checking out. They knew where to find us if we didn’t return the book! It was a matter of great pride to me that I never had an overdue book while in school. Even as a grownup, it was many years before I would “allow” myself to return a book late. My internal conversation would be something like, “Is it worth a ten cent fine to make a special trip to the library TODAY when you will be driving right past it tomorrow?”
In public libraries we have a card which is associated with our home address and the card is linked to each book we take out. The number of books permitted to be checked out is pretty large, often a dozen or so. And now there are DVD’s, ebooks, and audiobooks as well. Libraries are wonderful!
And the ticket was in a little pocket which was glued inside the cover. On the facing page was a small sheet that allowed the librarian to ‘date stamp’,( normally for a week or two) the day the book was to come back in. the sheet told its own story of when the book had been lent out before. Maybe just the once or several times. Maybe last week or a year or two ago. If it was a lengthy book you could ask for an extension or bring it back to be re-stamped. The ticket was put in a small cardboard wallet and filed under your name along with all the rest of the wallets, in a two foot very narrow drawer wide enough to hold the wallet. The drawer was, at the end of the library session, then put in a cabinet of lots of little drawers. And this was in the ’50s in a village called Danbury in Essex in the UK.
Back then, I always checked to see how many people before me enjoyed the same book, or how long it had been since it had been checked out last. I often felt bad for a book that hadn’t been checked out often and was unloved.
Martin, you’re our winner, email rjscott.team@gmail.com and I’ll get your prize organised 🙂