To Read or Not To Read
Adventures in the Library
Have you ever found a book in a store, started to read it, got distracted, and left, promising yourself you would return to buy the book or get it at the library?
But, on your next visit, you could not find the book, or remember the name, other than the vague promise of its narrative, or its blurb, or one of its characters?
How did that make you feel?
Imagine for a moment then you couldn’t continue because the adult in control of that book, rather than allow you to finish it, kept lending you new books to read.
How would that make you feel?
Welcome to our library class in high school (grades 8-10).
We had the privileged use of the library for 50 minutes each week during a prosaically named ‘Library Period.’
The fifty or fifty-two of us (some may have been absent) trooped down the hall, up or down the stairs, based on the classroom, to wait outside the library room on the first floor of the building where it was located.
Sometimes we may have assembled there, arriving independently, after the long interval (lunch break!) outside the library. My memory on this point is hazy.
For the most part, unlike in the US, students were assigned a classroom for the school year, and teachers came to class while students stayed put!
We had two intervals during school hours which ran from 9 am to 3 pm: a short interval for 5-10 minutes and a long interval for 45-60 minutes each. A bell rang loudly to signal the end of the break.
We waited in a single file outside the room, some of us talking, others excited.
The class had a ‘library teacher,’ not a ‘librarian.’ We called her Miss G………. (by her first name).
She always wore a saree, the end of it draped over her left shoulder, as all sarees are, and then around the back, and pulled over her right shoulder, across her front, with its end, either left loose in front or tucked into her waist.
Fun fact: This is usually a formal way to wear a saree, for some occasions, and places. It is also worn to show respect when in the company of elders or formal guests, sometimes covering the head as well.
She carried a cloth handkerchief in her left hand, wore black round-framed glasses, on an oval-shaped face, and was lean, almost to the point of appearing frail.
Her voice was hoarse, and broke, at times, as she spoke. We weren’t quite sure why (it was a health disorder I learned years later).
She looked at us through those glasses, rarely smiling, sporting an expression that brooked no nonsense.
She scared the wits out of us each week, intentionally or not, with her gruff low voice, stare, and expression of impatience at anything we said or did that did not meet her standards.
My memory may be uneven, but I remember that sometimes we were seated, while she distributed the books, at other times, we may have been outside while she laid out the books on each table.
As we waited outside by the door, in a single file, we could see her through the open door and windows, executing a readiness check before she let us inside.
It was a large room, with several steel and wooden cabinets with glass doors that housed books lined neatly on their shelves.
Note: in India, it is near-impossible to keep books dust-free, so glass doors are a way to at least make them dust-proof. Sometimes, used booksellers shrink-wrap books to protect them from the dust.
Wooden tables and chairs were placed, grouped in the center of the room, in two-three columns, with the cabinets flanking them on both sides.
Natural light flooded in through the large windows on the left side of the room.
The room had a single entrance and exit door, but large square or rectangular windows on both sides of the room. The inner windows oversaw the hallways to the classrooms.
There was enough space for Miss G. to walk the aisles on either side of the tables. Each table seated four or six students.
Once we were seated silently, Miss G. walked to each table carrying a stack of books. She handed out the books in order starting at the first table of the first row, and methodically making her way to each table.
[Of course, this ate into the reading time!]
Once she had handed out fifty-two books, she would then slowly walk back towards the front of the room, to her desk, and sit down. I don’t remember that she read while she supervised us.
The books were bound with green or brown binding on both sides, and you had to open the bound cover to see the actual cover of the book. Sometimes, the cover would be missing and the binding would directly open onto the inner page with the title.
Note: Even today, you can get books bound for cheap here, either retaining the original cover as is or selecting any one of a palette of color covers. Libraries typically bind books to lengthen their life. I had a new book bound for $1 as its pages were coming apart.
Miss G. walked the aisles, randomly, to ensure we were all engaged. I bet some of us read to escape her scrutiny. Engrossed in the book, we would be startled by suddenly finding her standing next to us when we thought her safely ensconced in front.
I remember smiles, giggles, and laughs, soft ones, among the most daring of the girls willing to make eye contact, the odd remark, or show the books they got. They encountered several displeased ‘Shhhs’ from Miss G. or a severe scold if they were too loud and distracting.
Each class, we patiently waited to be handed the book and excitedly opened it to see what we got. It was like a mystery gift. We weren’t allowed to trade books, but some of us managed it!
Other brave souls returned the book to her for an exchange, and grunting, she would stare at the kid, querying the reason, trying to ascertain if it was a lark.
If the teen’s story and gaze held under scrutiny, Miss G. grudgingly changed it, else, she refused.
I can’t remember what excuse was used, the easiest, of course, was that they had already read it. If successful, the teen would exchange a triumphant look with the others. Our conspiratorial smiles acknowledged her bravery.
Sadly, I never once chanced a scold by returning a book.
Library times were always fun, and we enjoyed the break from core classes.
Miss G., the stern custodian of these treasures, controlled our reading destinies. The ritual of book distribution, a meticulous dance of order and chance, defined those precious 50 minutes with many of them lost due to the varying logistics. We probably got 30-40 minutes of actual read time.
At some point in my adolescent years, I got a book that grabbed me from the first page. It was by Enid Blyton, that famed children’s book author.
The kids, in the tale, find a magical tree, discover a hole, and entering it, find themselves in a magical land.
The very nature of the adventure fascinated me.
Unfortunately, the bell rang to indicate the end of class when I had barely gotten to the middle of the story. To return a book meant, that we either had to put it down as soon as the bell rang, and leave in an orderly fashion, or she would start to collect it even before the bell rang.
I had a deep sense of incompleteness and regret for not being able to see what happened next on the adventure.
I kept hoping for the same book again. As any stats or math major will tell you, the odds were stacked against me.
All I remembered of the story was it had a tree, there was magic in it, and that the author may have been Enid Blyton.
Now there are sites like this one, set up by ardent readers.
As an adult, I looked for that storybook in three countries, flipping through many an Enid Blyton title, in countless used and new bookstores, charity bookshelves, and libraries.
As it happens with many such events in life, my quest was fulfilled when I had all but forgotten it.
There, on a shelf in a bookstore, perhaps in England - I do not recall - was the title, ‘The Magic Faraway Tree.’
Instinctively, I knew it was the same book. I discovered it was first published in 1943 in England by George Newnes.
The search for the book had only taken fifteen years.
I wish teachers and other adults responsible for children would be more mindful.
Rather than tie up children in knots over rules, and regulations, enforcing authority, and reinforcing fears, they would just stop, and remember what fun it was to be a child. The discovery of places unknown, the sheer exuberance of being carefree, with wonders gazing in your eyes, the promise of a lark with friends, without a care for the future.
Try and create a magical world for the child, instead of bringing your weighted troubles to them. Celebrate their innocent view of the world beyond, and the adventures that await.
Encourage them to read, and visit faraway lands, in a tree or not, and let them wander with abandon in dreamlands, where for a moment, everything is possible.
Whatever you do, make sure you have a system where a child doesn’t have to wait to become an adult to know how a simple magical story ended.
Do you have stories of a magical read?
My grandfather read us kids Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book in the evenings in the 1950s. I checked it out at the school library and renewed it for the whole school year until we moved away just so I'd have it near and read it myself.
Whoa friend ,i visited our library after decades , what a fascinating time it was. What a wonderful suggestion to let children be lost in this exciting world of books.