Kitchigami Library

The shape, the heft and weight, a small rectangle pulsing with secrets and stories, different places, other worlds; a book.

Open the front cover and you’re there: camping near a stream with Nick Adams. In a rabbit warren planning strategic military maneuvers - bunny style. Running through battle scarred woods trying to avoid the red badge of courage. Living in a dugout house by the banks of Plum Creek.

And there is something about the scent of books; new books have a distinct smell of clean page, fresh ink. Old books, faintly musty, warm smelling. I wonder whose hands have turned the pages. I wonder if they liked the story. I wonder if it changed them.

When I was a child our books were borrowed from the Kitchigami Regional Library in the small town near where we lived. On Saturday mornings the books borrowed the previous week were gathered into a cardboard carton and returned to the library while my mother went grocery shopping. We were then allowed to meander through the library aisles and choose a whole new bouquet of books for the upcoming week. It was heaven. I hardly knew where to begin.

When I first learned to read, I carried the Beatrix Potter stories to the smallest library tables and pored over them reverently. The Kitchigami had three child sized tables with tiny matching chairs, all positioned near the front windows where the sun streamed in. Those stories were, as they are still, truly wonderful to a young child; miniature, green covered books with delightful pictures and enchanting stories, and I read every word aloud. Quietly, of course. Beatrix Potter worked her spell of magic on me, hooked and reeled me into reading and books, for life.

When Mom finished her shopping she gathered us up, books and all, and we drove back home. Later in the day, when either she or Dad had a few minutes to spare, we kids gathered round in the living room where one of them would sit with a child or two on their lap, or hanging over the arms of the chair, maybe sprawled on the floor, and we would listen as they began to narrate their way through the seemingly endless stack of books. We hung on every word, and as soon as one story was finished we begged to hear another one, just as my nieces and nephews do now. Never have I heard any oration, to this day, that can match those calm, warm voices of my Mother and Dad reading aloud.

I felt very grown-up penciling my name on the sign-out cards at the Kitchigami. I left my mark on a great many of those books.

And a great many of those books left their mark on me.