Sunday, August 13, 2017

Library cards...


My daughter sent this photo to me while she was at our local library.  She and her girls like to go to the library fairly regularly so  I told her to look for the author Mitsumasa Anno who wrote several clever picture books for children, and guess whose name was on the card?  Mine!  And the one above my name is a friend's daughter.  Do you remember signing your actual name to the cards in the library books?  I always thought it was interesting to see who checked out the books before me, but when we were all assigned numbers instead, the fun ended.  Do you see number 334 on this card?  That was my number.  Now notice the number of "renews" there are under it.  I guess we really enjoyed Anno's Aesop.

We were homeschoolers and the library was  basically our school curriculum.  We all read a ton of books and the librarians were so much help to us finding particular books for the periods of history we were studying or science books or art books.  I remember one time our youngest, who was five at the time, went up to the librarian's desk, stepped up on the step stool, and asked if she could find him some books on how to read.  The librarian looked at me with questioning eyes and I said, "Well, can you?"   It was so sweet to see her come around from behind the desk and take him to some picture books about the ABCs.  By the way, Anno had a terrific ABC book called:  Anno's Alphabet and a couple of fun number books called:  Anno's Counting Book and Anno's Math Games which we checked out regularly.  If you have Littles in your life, they might love to read the Anno books with you too!

My married children are now homeschooling their children, our grandchildren, and it's just so much fun to share ideas and books with them.  The older I get, the more I have come to realize that the real learning in life happens naturally out of curiosity and wonder.  Day to day life teaches us many good lessons, but I am ever thankful for the trusty library card.  We could always dive deeply into a subject or choose to float lightly on the surface, finding the perfect library books to quench our thirst for knowledge and understanding.  Nowadays most everything in the library is computerized, and I think that has its many benefits, but it is still quite a lovely and humble thing to hear the stamp of the library date pressing down on a paper card in a paper book that can be held in eager hands.

Cheers to the library!

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/library.html

8 comments:

  1. I love that quote Jody, so true about life. Yes, I loved the library card and I was so sad when they didn't have them anymore. We were the same about the library and then I decided to start my own. My friend had her own bookstore in her garage and she carried only twaddle free books. She was a homeschooler and that was what she catered too. Now she has a regular used bookstore. Yes, I love your stories about homeschooling. I love that my grand kids are all being homeschooled now. I love hearing what they are learning and getting to be apart of it now. How nice it is to share those books we loved with our kids to a new generation. How nice to see your name on that card. Lovely memories.

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  2. Love the library and yes I do remember signing the library cards! When I homeschooled our daughter for a few years the library was a regular stop in our school week. How fun to see your name on a library card still being used.

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  3. Yay for the library, and yay for your post! This is great, Jody. :) It makes me smile to see your name on that card, written so many years ago when your children were young. Our family loved the library, too. It's so much fun to see my grown kids hunt down and buy the best copies they can find of the books they loved as children (as many are now unavailable new). And I still love bringing home stacks of books from the library.

    Cheers!

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  4. That's amazing that your name is still on that card. I pray the library never goes away.

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  5. How fun! I'd forgotten about library cards -- so sad that they're no longer in use. I think we might have an Anno book or two -- something else I'd forgotten about LOL.

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  6. I have actually found my name on a card in a book I checked out years ago. I have many sweet memories of using the library for homeschooling when my "young'uns" were growing up. I was public schooled, but I think I would have chosen homeschooling if it had existed in my childhood. I think the things I remember learning are the things I learned from books I chose myself at the library.

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  7. I do miss a paper world. I loved my local libraries in high school, and I spent hours there because it was a place i felt like I belonged, I felt at peace. I love the smell of the books, and as you said, looking at who had read the books before. I love the personal feel of names and dates and paper. I do miss that.

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  8. Yesterday I checked some books out of our church library and they have those cards in them. It was very sweet to do things the old-fashioned way. :-)

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