Once Upon A Time
“My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn’t believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn’t believe that it was free.” Kirk Douglas, actor, author, producer
The boy was so small; his head barely reached the counter at his public library. Shining dark hair fell over his pink cheeks; he danced around as he handed books to his mom. The more she piled on the counter, the more he handed her. “Enough, enough,” she finally said, laughing. Will he read all those books? Someone asked. “Oh, yes, he will,” his mom said. “He has a book for every room and two for car rides.”
Television actress and talk show host Oprah Winfrey once said that books were her passport to personal freedom, that they taught her there was a world outside her family’s farm in Mississippi. According to Ms. Winfrey, she read when she was three. And she, too, I’ll wager, had books for every occasion.
I know because everyone who loves books does. Books in our homes are secretly “Bus books,” “Waiting for doctors books”, “Stuck in traffic books”, “Eating alone books” and everyone’s secret passion, “Bathroom books.”
The little boy also had eclectic tastes. I counted seven story books, three science books, four books about trucks and one about a boy in Colonial times. He’s discovered what some folks never discover.
The world is full of ideas and far away lands — and endless books just waiting to tell us all about them. With a library card, we can have the company of the brightest minds in any nation, written yesterday or before Christ. We can ponder on the greatest mysteries or laugh with the most humorous writers. We can even hide our delicious secret reading vice, tucked under the covers with a book and a flashlight. I remember that’s how I cheated on my bedtime curfews. That little and the rest of us – have a passport to the greatest gift in America – the public library.
Meditation for the Day
“To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one.” Anonymous
Action for the Day
Today, I’ll consider being a bright light to someone who’s not been introduced to books and give him or her a book appropriate to age and interests. I’ll also consider donating books to a class or a school that needs them.
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