In junior high school, I was one of Miss Kellogg’s “Library Helpers,” and it was definitely work that I loved. We Library Helpers checked books in and out, shelved books, and occasionally worked with the card catalog. (Are you old enough to remember card catalogs?) We also did such tasks as putting protective library covers on books. I loved being in the library, whether it was the school library or the public library, and whether I was there working or borrowing books (or, in the case of the public library, borrowing records).

I was almost an omnivore when it came to reading. I say “almost” because I didn’t read all genres. For example, I shunned mysteries and westerns, when it came to fiction, and in both fiction and nonfiction I had something of an aversion to depictions of killing or maiming. I was not yet interested in cookbooks or books about cooking. My favorites were humor, poetry, and plays. Oddly, I was also a fan of a certain series of history books. I say “oddly” because History was one of my least favorite school subjects (and one in which I did not get particularly good marks, either, not surprisingly). But the author of this series—I wish I remembered his or her name, or the series name—actually made history interesting, made it come alive on the pages of these big, thick, photo-illustrated books.

They were shelved on the “History island” of the school library, where the books were “reference only”—that is, not circulating. You had to read them in the library. You couldn’t borrow them. I would sit there and devour them.

To the extent the family finances would allow, my mother indulged my hunger for books and stocked my bookshelves with volumes, but my hunger exceeded her budget, so I supplemented. I not only borrowed voraciously from both the school and public libraries, I also raided my mother’s bookshelves. In first grade I had read at the third grade level and in third grade I was reading at the sixth grade level, so by the time I reached junior high, I was well acquainted with my mother’s book collection. Some of the themes and concepts were beyond my grasp, but with occasional exceptions the vocabulary wasn’t.

But my mother didn’t have books of poetry or compendiums of plays. The public library did. And my mother didn’t have the sheer assortment of topics, authors, and titles that the libraries did. My tastes were eclectic, ranging from Emily Kimbrough to Damon Runyan, from Stephen Leacock to Clarence Day. (You’ll notice, though, a commonality of humor, or some degree of humorousness.)

My mother had—and I still have it on my bookshelf—the Day trilogy in a single bound volume. I have an assortment of her other books, too, though their number has dwindled as, in move after move, I have regretfully had to re-home books for space considerations.

I think if I had been offered a choice between a day at DisneyLand (DisneyWorld was still just a twinkle in Walt’s eyes in those days) and a no-books-limit trip to the library with a shopping cart in which to tote home all my finds, I would have been hard pressed to choose.

My mother was an avid proponent of “fresh air, exercise, and sunshine” (how I hated those words!), but my preference was always to stay indoors and read. (We lived in an apartment building, so “reading in the backyard” was not an option.) The only exercise I enjoyed was walking to the library to borrow more books—and then it wasn’t really the exercise itself that I enjoyed. It was the prize I got at both ends of my journey: At the library, I got to snag a fresh batch of books, and once back home, I got to stretch out and get lost in them.

Of course I also borrowed books for homework assignments, but mostly I read for sheer pleasure—and what a pleasure it was.

Today I possess library cards from both our village’s library and the county library system, though I confess to buying far more books than I borrow. But I still love libraries, and I still (and always will) love books.