Once Upon A Time...

Story Hour by Suzanne M. Schweikert M.D. Copyright 2004 Suzanne M. Schweikert All Rights Reserved In this column, Dr. Suzanne Schweikert explores the impact of having read too many good books when a kid. Comments, thoughts, and personal experiences on kid lit and related topics are welcome. Email: Dr.Schweikert@WritersMonthly.com

Where Have All The Libraries Gone?

When I was seven years old, in that magical space between the thumb-sucking terror of first grade and the swaggering confidence of third grade, I found myself being shuffled out of my second grade classroom and off to the library for "Story Hour." At first, I felt ready to flee. (Exactly the way I would feel the first time I stepped into my college library.)

But back in the second grade, I had no choice. My teacher pushed us through the library doors giddily, knowing she would have a blissful hour by herself to catch up on whatever second grade teachers catch up on. And there I was, feeling abandoned, but not quite sure if I should cry about it, when Polly came out to greet us.

We have all met a Polly in our lives. As adults, we usually we wonder what drugs the Pollys of the world are on. But back in the second grade, Polly was as new and inexplicable to me as the library itself. Polly had carrot-red hair and a high, screechy voice. At least that’s how I remember her. Maybe she just raised her voice to dramatize the stories she told. Whatever the case, my entire second grade class was mesmerized.

We soon learned that our school library was her castle, holding ancient mysteries that only she could lead us to. We walked away from our first story hour in awe, still lost in the world she had shared with us. It was not the first time we had been read to. But it was the WAY she read to us, and the place we were read to in, that was so amazing.

We returned to Polly’s castle each week. On every visit, we learned something new about libraries, a bit of information that made us fear them less, gravitate towards them more. Each week, we looked forward to sitting on pillows with the great theatrical Polly acting out stories. I will never know if these sessions were the catalyst for my love of libraries. But it seems likely.

It is probably no accident that, in a junior high school far, far away, I signed up to be a library monitor. While my friends were enjoying their elective hour as office monitors, bringing bag lunches and sweaters to kids who had left theirs at home, I was shelving books and filing index cards. But the librarians at my junior high school were no Pollys. They lectured me about raising my voice, gave me endless busywork, and watched over me suspiciously, not believing that a seventh grader would actually want this job.

But I did. It was in that very library that I discovered a book by an author with my own last name and, although I can’t remember what it was about, its mere existence promised that I too could be a writer someday. That was also where I discovered Ebony magazine, and realized that African-Americans have a whole different set of materials to help them understand the world. When the librarians weren’t watching, I would leaf through its glossy pages and wonder what it was like to be black. I never found the answer, but it was important that I asked the question.

It is also probably no accident that I became an English major in college. It was during that first terrifying college library tour, as an overly keen freshman was attempting to explain the card catalogue system, that I clung to a deeper trust that this ancient library would somehow protect me. And indeed, while wandering in its labyrinthine underbelly, I discovered an audio-visual room with hundreds of BBC productions. Watching every Shakespeare play on record must have given me the courage to face the challenges of a new, but equally complicated century.

And finally, I’m quite sure it is no accident that I ended up pursuing a career in research. Back in medical school, during those desperate middle-of-the-night searches through the bio-med library for clues to a patient’s prognosis, I was awed by our great, yet imperfect history of medical discovery. My time spent in that library gave me profound respect for scientists, especially those who communicate in an intelligible manner.

But, you may ask, with all that is known about childhood development, can I really attribute my life’s path to Polly or her library? Were there not a thousand other people and places that also played a role? I’m sure the latter is true. And yet, my first library visit is as indelible in my memory, and as powerful a calling, as any I’ve had since. So, I can’t help but make the connection. And that is, after all, what libraries help us do - connect the seemingly unrelated events in our world until they start to make sense.

So, it saddens me that, with the internet so readily available and school budgets so ruinously undermined, children may no longer sit spellbound in a school library. And I wonder if there isn’t something in a library’s smells and sounds that imparts the story of our species and our planet better than any internet site. I also wonder if children can get a grasp on their future, without ever setting foot in a repository of our past. And yet, I believe and hope that, despite the odds, kids will find their way to libraries. They seem to be magical in that way. Kids and libraries, that is.

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