A Treatise on Books

      Last night, instead of straightening up my kitchen, I spent the time downloading free books from I-Books.  Some were books of poetry by Edgar Guest - sappy but wonderful, several by Willa Cather, every free book available by Edna Ferber and a few historical romances too.
      My love affair with books goes back to my sixth birthday when Mother took me to The Lincoln Library to get a LIBRARY CARD - a rite of passage!!!  I remember walking up those marble stairs inside the doors and her handing me over to the librarian who helped me fill out the registration and who gave me a card with a  number and admonished me that  I could only keep the book - only one when you were six - for two weeks and I must return it on time so that other children could take it out.  I can still see the young books section.  The shelves, the bench, the feel of the books as you held them and turned the pages.  Garrison Keillor says that a book is a gift you can open again and again.  That's how I felt, looking at those books over and over was a gift to myself.  Among my favorites was Babar, written in cursive.
     Here my story turns dark!!!  The next year, we moved up to and rented a house on College Avenue and I went to St. Marks School.  No library close that I can remember.  In our classrooms were a row of books that we could read after our work was done and if we were really good, we could take one home.  In third grade, I was a good student and was able to take a book home several times.  The problem was I didn't take them back.  I loved seeing those books standing upright on my dresser.  I read them again and again, they were dear friends.  One day, Sister commented that there were several books missing and one of my classmates said: "Norma Scovil stole them, I saw her take them home!"  Branded a thief at age 8, oh, the shame of it!!  I didn't feel I had stolen them, I knew that at the end of the school year they would have to go back, I just wanted to look at them in my house.
     The next year, my parents had saved enough to put a down payment on a home on Howett Street in the Southside, one block from Lincoln Street and two blocks to the Lincoln Library.  There I became friends with Lois Lenski's books like Strawberry Girl and the Tib, Tacy and Betsy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.  I loved reading books in a series or by the same author - still do.
   In High School I worked in the AOL library and read everything I could.  And when my children were in school at old St. Patricks, under Sister Mary dePaul's tutelage, I learned the rudiments of the Dewey Decimal System, and put some order to the Library there.  I also worked as a librarian at St. Patricks in Washington.
     The books that I own - bought and paid for - are like friends that you don't see all the time but when you do they are full of memories and good times.  I just reread The Wizard of Oz, and neither the movie or Wicked are as good as the original by Frank Baum.
     Some years back, I read a series of books by Lorna Landvic, Patty Jane's House of Curl, was the first.  I have two copies, a paperback that I loan out - someone has it now, can't remember who - and a hardback I keep for myself.  I will read anything by Marion Chesney and The Mitford Series by Jan Karon is wonderful.  One of the women in Swim Class told me about a series of books, the first of which is A Year at Ladybug Farm.  So good, I read it in one sitting.  Recently, I bought new copies of  two old favorites, Cold Sassy Tree and 1000 White Women that I had loaned out so long ago, that I have given up hope of getting them back.
      I never wanted a kindle or a nook because I love turning the pages in a book, but my I-Pad turns the pages as you read - so cool!  The loveliest thing about I-Books is that the books don't have to be dusted, no one can borrow them and when I am done reading, if I choose, I hit delete.  Life is good.