Have you ever been treated as an outcast? Like you were the only kid in your class who wore glasses, or had freckles or curly hair? Or maybe you were a transplant from some far away city into a rural type town. Have you ever felt like you were the only one? And so, since you didn’t have anyone to talk to, you turned to books. And in books you found others just like you, a kid who had glasses and curly hair. A kid who had divorced parents. A country kid in a city school. A kid who wanted a dog but only had two goldfish in a glass bowl on the kitchen counter. You identified with these characters because they had things in common with you, and it seemed like a miracle because you were all alone until you discovered this book that appeared to be written just for you.

Some kids are fortunate enough to have parents who talk to them, who pray with them, who teach them right from wrong. Some kids aren’t fearful of talking to a teacher, or a church leader, or maybe they trust a neighbor or relative with their deepest secrets and use them as a moral compass. But some kids don’t have that. Some kids only have books as friends, and as allies. Some kids only have books as a means to justify feelings or to trust with their heart.

Maybe these kids use their library after school, unsupervised other than the library staff. The PUBLIC library, which is for EVERYONE.

It’s a wonderful, magical place where you can travel to anywhere you’ve ever dreamed by simply opening the cover and flipping pages. There are books on our mountains, present day, and what it was like living in them over a hundred years ago. You can travel to ancient Egypt, or the Netherlands, or even outer space and the Jurassic period. You can travel to a place that isn’t real, except in the author’s and readers’ minds. You can be anyone – a gold miner, an acrobat, a gorilla who skates. You can be a billionaire or a hobo or a teardrop in an ocean. There’s something for everyone.

And as a member on the board of trustees for our library, I intend to keep it that way.

The library staff is not trying to indoctrinate any children. They are not trying to brainwash or be subversive and make kids out to be anything other than what they are. They are trying to reach the teenagers who feel like all is lost and they’re alone with these new feelings of who they like.

I keep thinking about when I was a young girl and I was sitting at my desk in class. I looked over and another girl had a book laying on top of her textbook. She wasn’t reading about our lesson. She was reading this other book, a book about when your parents divorce. I saw it, and I thought, “hey, me too, I wonder if that book could help me.” I don’t remember if I ever read it, but the point is, it was there if I needed it. Because Lord knows your parents have their hands full coping with their own trauma than to deal with the fallout from a twelve year old kid caught in the crossfire. So having feelings validated and being told what to expect and what is normal and what isn’t rational could certainly be beneficial.

Kudos to those of you who had supportive parents, open relationships, and plenty of people to talk to. Not everyone has that. Some people only have books, regardless of age- be it five years old, seventeen, forty, or eighty. Bless the books, and bless the librarians who help get them into the hands that need them.

“Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read!” ~Mitch Hedburg. If you don’t want them reading it, I certainly hope you curtail their TV watching and video game playing. Lord knows that’s pure garbage for 80% of the programs shown. I also hope you are having all the hard conversations and teaching them your expectations and your religious beliefs. Don’t let them float. Don’t expect someone else to do it for you. And don’t get mad if they learn their own ways for themselves because you were absent. They have their own mind, and it can be filled with all sorts of things, whether you approve or not.

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” Charles W. Eliot