There is something about getting to pick a book, a book to take home and keep, a book to read, cherish, re-read, and remember the characters, the illustrations and the settings, the words and conversations, the feelings and the reasons that draw us back into its pages all over again.
For me those books with shelf-staying power include James Lincoln Collier’s the Teddy Bear Habit, Robin McKinley’s Beauty or Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time, but for my five-year old it was Princess Smarty Pants. She gets around traditional princess obligations and outwits a parade of princely suitors using her court of fairytale creatures and unrelenting roller skating skills.
As many times as I pull the Princess from the shelf, and suggest we drop it off to the Friends of the Library Book Barn, or put on the book bike for another child to enjoy, my daughter always puts it back. Even my suggestion that she can stream it on YouTube when she gets the urge will not work. Streaming on YouTube will not cut it. Princess Smarty Pants will stay on the shelf, and will be ready to go with my daughter wherever she goes when she graduates from high school next year.
At the library during the week of Valentine’s Day, we aim for kids to feel a part of a community who keeps reading close to their hearts and makes reading a constant in their lives as we are join the Pima County School Superintendent’s Office and Literacy Connects in support of the Love of Reading.
Starting Monday February 9 and during the week while they last, the generous support of the Friends of the Pima County Public Library allows us to provide the opportunity for children who stop by the library to pick a book that they can take home and keep.
I hope kids will find their version of Princess Smarty Pants-- that book, those illustrations, those characters and that story that will stand out for them and speak to their hearts. I hope the book they choose will find a place on that kid’s shelf or on the stack next to his/her bed, ready to be read, or shared all over again.
-Beth