The Library Was Always My Second Home: How a Love of Books Grew Into a Love of Words

Plainview-Old Bethpage, NY Public Library

I always felt at home in libraries.

At a young age, my mom would take me to the library and I’d push the limits and leave with arms full of books.

Remember the card catalog system? This photo sure sends me back to my childhood. It’s of the actual 1960s Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library children’s room on Long Island, where I grew up. I found it on an alumni site.

I am transported. I can picture myself standing in the middle of the card catalog, with well-honed Dewey Decimal skills, doing my book reports on Shintoism, Oliver Cromwell, or Greek mythology. (I have them all still.)

I was always a book lover, and was a proud member of the Busy Beaver Book Club--the summer reading program. I binged on Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and E.L. Konigsburg, the author of my all-time fave children's book.

I always remember snickering at the class's collective groan when my sixth-grade teacher Mr. Derman assigned a book report or reading assignment with an essay. I loved it. He used to let me stay in at recess and mark papers for him. He never questioned my grading system. And an "A+" was hard to come by in "my class.”

Reading. Writing. Ain’t words divine?