Books

I first walked into Wichita's new Barnes & Noble Bookstore 15 years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child. Upon entering the children's picture book section, I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to purchase all of my childhood favorites. This desire was, no doubt, carefully orchestrated by a crack marketing team focusing heavily on my demographic. What I saw was clever cut-outs and artistic displays of Harold and His Purple Crayon--I loved him!, Max from Where the Wild Things Are--I loved him too!, Curious George--he was the best!, Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat, and others. I wanted all of them. My baby needed to know Harold, Max, and George. Surely visiting Dr. Seuss was just as important as visiting the family doctor.

I was planning to quit my full-time job to stay home with my baby, so spending a paycheck on picture books probably wasn't a wise idea. I left without buying anything.

Later, I thought about all my favorite books--where were they? My mom had never sorted through our childhood bookcase. All of the books we'd ever owned were still there. But I knew I'd look in vain for Harold, and never find his purple crayon. I'd search for where the wild things are, and never find them or Max. Curious as I might be, I wouldn't find that monkey, George.

I'd never owned them. We'd checked those books out from the library. Multiple times. And read them, multiple times. And they became so much a part of my childhood, that when I saw a display of them more than 20 years later, they were my old friends. I hadn't needed to hold them hostage on my bookcase, I could release them for other kids to enjoy.

So when my kids were little, we faithfully showed up for story time each week at the library, and we checked out Harold, Max, and George, and a host of other new characters that became good friends as well.

My kids do have their own book collections, and when they've culled books to put in a garage sale, I've often taken favorites out and put them back, not ready to say goodbye. However, our house is small and our bookshelf space is limited. I know there is no way that we could ever house all of the books I love and would like to keep. But we don't need to. We can go to the library.