Tell Me Something Tuesday was hosted by Rainy Day Ramblings, but she has (temporarily?) stopped blogging. So a group of us that had been doing posts (Linda from Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell, Karen from For What It’s Worth, Roberta from Offbeat YA, Jen from That’s What I’m Talking About and me) decided to get together, come up with some more topics and keep the meme going.Michelle made us a logo and we’re off and running. For more details, check out this post where I reintroduced the meme.
I’ve been especially sporadic with posting lately – missing some prompts I really wanted to join in on because life got crazy. But I’m taking Thanksgiving week off and hoping to spend some time really scheduling these out! *Fingers crossed*
I can be sporadic, but when I do join in I will always share next week’s topic at the end of the post. So, today is about…
Share a book-centric childhood memory
I have a lot – from my early inability to read (needed glasses but no on knew it until the end of 1st grade) to getting in trouble for staying up all night reading. But I think the one that most impacted me was the story of my local librarians and the most amazing gift.
My family was pretty spectacularly poor growing up. I had what I needed, but books are not a need, so I didn’t own many (just the free church ones).
My parents introduced us to the the neighborhood library young though and I never felt that I was missing anything not owning books. Once I was old enough, I took my bike to the library – it was a very small town and this was long enough ago that you didn’t worry about your 8 year old riding their bike all over town. I was there pretty much every day reading books and taking home a few. The librarians knew me by name and always let me know when there were books they thought I would enjoy.
One day one of the librarians brought in her daughter’s 1st Babysitter’s Club book and told me since she knew I was so responsible with books I could borrow it. I was amazed that it was her daughter’s book. I said something like, “wow, it’s HER book? She doesn’t ever have to give it back? She can read it whenever she wants?” when I returned it and loved it, the librarian asked me if I thought I’d like to own it and read it whenever I wanted and I said that would be the most amazing thing EVER.
About a month later I started getting Babysitter’s Club books in the mail – 1 book a month. The librarians had gotten together and gifted me a membership in the Babysitter’s Book Club. Every time I got a book, I would stare at the cover and imagine what was going to happen. Then I would read the book and tell the librarians about everything that was happening. And when I finished, I wrote them a thank you note. Every single book I got was magical and followed with a thank you card – up to like #60, when we moved to Texas and I had to quit the club.
Coincidentally, when I decided I was going to be an author and wrote my first book, it was the address from the inside cover of one of my Babysitter’s Club books that I used to mail in my book to be published. No, they didn’t publish it. But they did send me a rejection letter that I hung on my wall for years. They were really kind and told me I shouldn’t give up on my dream (I didn’t and I am a published author of 1 short story lol). My parents were shocked when I got the rejection letter, since they didn’t know I had sent the book. I still don’t know how it got to them, since I didn’t remember paying for postage. Maybe I had a post-office fairy? Anyway… that was I guess a second story lol! Back to the point…
My librarians LITERALLY gave me the gift of reading. I will always treasure libraries and think of the precious gift they give to those who can’t afford to have their own books.
That is wonderful! I too was a library lover. I really need to get back to it. Those women did a great thing and I love it so much. ☺️
OMG, this is a lovely story! I didn’t own too many books until I was in my teens, I mostly went to the library to read too, but the librarians there ignored me or made me feel like an irritant when I spoke to them… It didn’t deter me though. 😉
Oh! What an amazing story! Such a gift to give… I love your story and so glad you shared it with us. Thank you!
It was nice to remember it and think on it 🙂 It was such an amazing gift!
“books are not a need”
Of course they are…but I know what you mean 😥.
That was a super-sweet story! And I didn’t know one of your shorties was published – what’s the anthology?
Do you know I had to look it up and couldn’t find it at first because I was remembering the name wrong? LOL! I entered it into a contest and it won a spot in the anthology: WELCOME TO THE FUTURE https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25037798-welcome-to-the-future?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=j0ITQ8zRG8&rank=2
My dad reading to me and doing voices! The one I remember the most is him reading B’rer Rabbit books and making funny voices for the characters! 🙂
Oh that’s fun. The kids always loved it when I did voices at school!
Awww, that is amazing! If those ladies only knew the affect they had on you! And, I was a huge fan of the BSC, too! 🙂
I wish I knew someway to let them know. Hopefully they saw the excitement in me and my thank you notes. The BSC was a great starter series! Did you watch the Netflix series they just released? It’s pretty good!
Love your library story and those librarian givers! I lived at the library during my grade school years.
I bet a lot of us bookworms did! They were pretty amazing 🙂
What a gift your library was to you… and the librarians! My goodness, what amazing women who went above and beyond to encourage a young reader. Thank goodness for special people like them.
I still get teary eyed thinking about it. It was amazing to me then, but as an adult I recognize that they did a big thing. <3