On being bookish

“Read all the books in the house because I’ve read all the ones here!” she said. 

Ruby, like the rest of our family, is bookish. 

The first thing we’ll do when they get here is go to the Auburn Public Library. They’ve been visiting this library all their lives. They’ve participated in reading challenges, watched puppet shows, and best of all, checked out armloads of books.

The library has gone through several transformations since the days when I visited as a child. I’d sprawl out on the floor and pull picture books off the shelf, reading for what felt like hours in the cool, quiet, air-conditioned room. I loved bringing my selection to the desk and watching the librarian remove the card from its pocket and stamp it. I played library at home, putting envelopes and index cards in my own books, and stamping them with a real date stamp my mama got for me at Glendean Drugs.

We were a bookish family. Everyone read. Our bookshelves were full to bursting with books. Even Robert, hyperactive before it had a name and struggling with a severe learning disability, was a serious reader, and later an eloquent writer. 

Our parents read to us every night. Reading was expected, like eating dinner and brushing our teeth. When the TAB Bookclub “newletters” come home from school once a month, my mama would plug in a clumsy, orange adding machine for me to use to tally my purchases. We were not a frivolous house, but Robert and I were allowed to spend as much as we wanted on books. Books, that is, not erasers and geegaws, though I always qualified to get a free horse poster with my orders.

We had free access to all the books in the house, but before touching James Audubon’s "Birds of America," we had to wash our hands. I’d scrub my fingers, carefully take the heavy book off the shelf, sit on the couch and turn the huge pages one at a time, perplexed by those weird drawings. 

There was one forbidden book, Truman Capote’s "In Cold Blood." Our parents kept it in a locked cabinet behind a glass door. 

They’d have been better off not mentioning it to us. I don’t have to tell you that Robert and I fashioned our own tiny key. We’d sneak that book out from behind the glass door, furtively read as much as we could, keeping watch for the parents.

Of course, it gave me nightmares. But so did "Siegfried, the Mighty Warrior," "Old Yella," "Black Beauty," and "My Friend, Flicka." I didn’t stick with "In Cold Blood," losing interest until much later when I devoured it in high school, but those other books, especially the ones where the animals died, they were tortuous. I read them anyway. I survived.

Years later, I married a bookish man. Bookishness and dog-lovingness were non-negotiables for both of us. In fact, my ruse for assuring a return visit with Joe was to borrow a book off his bookshelf (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Letters to His Daughter). Our home has always been rich with books. Books covered the floor when our girls were small. We kept books in big bins that we could slide under the furniture. There was no point in putting them all on the shelves. 

Keeping tradition, I read to our girls every night. Every single night. If we had folks over for dinner, I’d disappear for 45 minutes to read. There were no exceptions to the nighttime ritual. I’d swap between board books and picture books and chapter books to accommodate their ages, and they each listened to the other’s books.

One night, when Anna, our youngest, was in fifth grade, I stopped whatever I was doing and went down to her room. I settled on the bed beside her and pulled out J.K. Rowling’s The Order of the Phoenix, the fifth Harry Potter book.

I opened the book and began to read, eager to pick up where we left off. 

“No Mama, not there. I read ahead,” Anna said, like it was no big deal. But in fact, it was. She’d left me behind in the book we were reading together. I realized then that it was time for me to let go of reading nightly to my chickadees — 17 years of it would have to suffice.

I look forward to having Annabelle and Ruby here for a week, throwing pillows and blankets on the floor, gathering the dogs and the armloads of library books, and reading together. And I look forward to a democratic world where every child has wide access to all kinds of books, and every town of every size has fully funded libraries. 

Happy National Library Week to all! Read freely, read often, read wild.

Mary Dansak is a writer, equestrian, and naturalist living in Auburn, AL. She can be reached at maryfdansak@gmail.com. and at marydansak.com.