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Autumn has arrived in the Wood River Valley in a flurry of change. Leaves are turning from green to gold, students are returning to school with their packs full of books and #2 pencils, and southbound birds are spreading their wings. With September has also come the happy annual occasion of Library Card Sign-up Month.
When my grandmother first took me to the public library in Missoula, Montana, I was agog with amazement and unmitigated joy. There were books everywhere! Books up high, books down low, thick books, thin books, grown-up books, teenage books, little kid books, books in every color of the rainbow, and books just for me.
I decided on the spot that I was going to read every single book in that library, in the whole wide world! I was too little to realize that a library is a living thing. New books arrive every day even as books are culled out of active circulation.
I took my happy little stack of books to the nice lady at the check-out counter, where I got my very first library card. For free! I was schooled in the rules about returning them after two weeks – after which time I could check out more books! – and not eating chocolate while reading or taking my coloring crayons to the pages. Pinky swear! The one thing I do not want to lose in this life is my library card.
The librarian opened each book, one by one, pulled an index card out of a little pocket inside the cover, and stamped the card with a date two weeks’ hence. And I was on my way to a world of adventures and information the likes of which I could not have otherwise imagined—from Sunnybrook Farm to Middle Earth to 13.8 billion light years across time and space.
“Lights out,” my grandmother would say, many a summer night when she saw the light under my doorway past my bedtime.
“Okay, I’m almost to the end of the chapter!”
Fifteen minutes later: “Lights out, Kyla.”
“One more page!” I would plea.
“Lights out...”
And on an on until I surrendered … or fell asleep.
Books have been a vital part of my life since I pulled Green Eggs and Ham off the shelf all those years ago.
I’ve had a library card in every city I’ve lived in because it’s an E-ticket to adventure, entertainment, and knowledge. With my Community Library card, I can listen to audio books, flip through e-reader books, and check out music CDs, films and documentaries. I can even watch the entire Mad Men television series. Again. I can read the New York Times cover-to-cover and learn a new language. All free with my library card.
Oh, and I can check out real live books!
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Get a Card | Spread the Love: Because The Community Library is privately funded, anyone from anywhere in the world can come in and get a library card. If you know someone who doesn’t have one, forward this link for a library card and a launchpad to untold adventures.
If you DO have a library card, I invite you to take a selfie with your card and post it on social media. Tag #iLoveMyLibrary in your posts and add @thecommunitylibrary on Facebook and @thecommunitylibraryketchum on Instagram. The librarians - and the books - thank you!
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