A quote from author Eudora Welty:
“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them — with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them.” (One Writer’s Beginnings)
How I can relate to Welty’s introduction to books!
My mother treated books with all the delicacy and reverence of a holy relic. Every Friday night, the family would pile into the station wagon and drive into town. The public library loomed before us like some great cathedral, magnificently lit, silent and austere; a place for study and reflection; a place of refuge and escape. My brother and I browsed through the racks, carefully opening the precious treasures, awed by the words we could not read and the colorful illustrations that dazzled our eyes. We carried off the chosen books, secure in our arms, and with smiling faces, looked forward to our bedtime story hour.
I remember The Cat in the Hat and Madeline and so many more. I remember my mother’s voice, lulling us into sleepiness, and then the final ritual before going to bed: putting the books away in a special cupboard, high enough so that we could not reach them without my mother’s help. Books were special. Books were expensive. Books were rare. They needed to be locked away and protected like royal jewels. But most of all, they required love, a deep and abiding love that would last a lifetime.
Dawn Pisturino
February 5, 2014
Copyright 2014 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.
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