Teach & Serve II, No. 12 – Don’t Shut the Door on the Library
October 26, 2016
My concern is … simple: will people develop a love of reading without the physicality of the activity and without its accompanying shrines?
I am so proud of my sister. She has been a children’s librarian for almost 20 years. I’ve seen what she does for kids: she inspires them to read. Through crafts and displays and public readings and activities, she seduces kids to the word. She brings them into the library. She is part of a long tradition of educators who inspire.
I love libraries. I love what they mean. What they are. What they can become. Reading has been something of a religion for me and libraries have been the churches in which I’ve practiced.
What got me hooked on the word? What got me started?
Batman made me read.
This is likely a true statement. I use the word “likely” because who really remembers exactly the moment they turned on to reading. How really recalls the day and time that reading became as important as anything else in life?
I don’t recall the exact second on which my life turned – that second I decided I would be a reader – by I know Batman was the reason.
I was in first grade. I could already read – pretty well, in fact. It was the mid-1970s and teachers were still dividing kids into ability groups. I was in the Dinosaurs with other good readers. I was not in the Lions. I got it. I could read and I liked it. I didn’t love it.
No, I didn’t love reading until the day that I ran headlong into the corner of a brick wall. On the way home from the hospital (6 stitches, don’t you know?), my father bought for me two comic books: Batman Family and Superman Family.
I fell in love with comics on the spot and I fell in love with superheroes. I couldn’t get enough of them.
While comic books were relatively cheap, my parents (wisely knowing the collecting hoarder I might one day become) didn’t always indulge my desire to buy them. Rather, we would hop in the car on many a weekend and head to the Arvada Public Library. There, as I recall, I could check out 3 items a week – whatever I wanted.
That what I wanted were more stories of superheroes was fine by my folks. I checked out comic books (which you could do back then… can you do it now?). I checked out books and records featuring stories of DC and Marvel superheroes. I checked out Little Big Books starring… wait for it… superheroes. The library fed my growing desire for comic book characters all the while powering my growing ability to read and comprehend.
I am not alone in owing libraries for this. Generation after generation learned to love language in just this fashion.
Not my sister… storytime in the 1970s
Libraries find themselves (as they ever have, by-the-way) at something of a crossroads, especially the ones in our schools. There is pressure to move them into the 21st Century (whatever that means), to make them media centers, iPad labs, moveable spaces, to take out books.
Hey, let’s draw the line a bit here.
I love me my iPad. I read most books and comics on it now. It’s convenient to be sure. That’s a good thing. But, I have to ask, are kids falling in love with reading using their computers, phones and iPads? Is the same connection to the word developed with a tablet?
Professor Andrew Dillon has done some work on the subject. He’s concerned about the tactile differences and how we are being conditioned. Professor Anne Mangen worries about the recall ability of those using e-readers rather than books. There are concerns.
My concern is much more simple: will people develop a love of reading without the physicality of the activity and without its accompanying shrines?
We have to be careful when we talk about modernizing our libraries. We have to pay attention to what’s come before those thoughts. We have to realize the stakes and they are high. Let’s have high tech rooms, makers’ spaces, robotics labs and technology dens.
But, for education’s sake, let’s have libraries. Let’s have books.
Batman made me read. Libraries fed my habit. I am an educator now who reveres the word.
Is there a through line?
You better believe it.