The library is awesome. I remember when I was a kid walking a long, long way in the summertime to go to the Provo library. The library will let you take home just about any book you like - amazing. I'm doing my best to teach my kids to love books and reading. Only one of them has caught on to that, and it's not my Little Friend. This summer I hope to help him see that there are good books outside of the Magic Treehouse series.
I still like to go and browse through the shelves and look forward to all the quiet, peaceful hours I will spend inside another world. I bring my own frame of reference to every book I read, naturally, but the story belongs to someone else. A library is about people, although sometimes librarians act like it's all about the books.
I think that is essentially what Walt Whitman is trying to say in his poem, but who knows. What do you think? Personally, I think Walt spent a lot of time smoking leaves of grass. I wonder if he talked like that in person. Can you imagine trying to have a friendly conversation with somebody who talked like that? I wonder also if Walt had a lot of overdue book fines, and the librarians wouldn't let him check out anything else until he paid up.
Shut Not Your Doors to Me, Proud Libraries - by Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass)
Shut Not Your Doors to Me, Proud Libraries - by Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass)
Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging – a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing – the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God – to the joyous, electric All,
To the sense of Death – and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn, the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging – a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing – the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God – to the joyous, electric All,
To the sense of Death – and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn, the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.
remember the movie Matilda? She walked a long way to the library - it opened up her world! My child also does not share my love for books. Strange.
ReplyDeleteP.S. his pics are so funny! Same eyes...same slight smile! :o)
ReplyDeleteQuentin liked the Animorph books at that age, and they both liked the Boxcar Children books before that. Half Magic by Edgar Eager is really good. Argh! i can't think of anymore just now.
ReplyDeleteI think if one looks at this picture too long, one can begin to imagine death rays coming out of his eyes as he gleefully melts one's brain. LOL What a cute boy!
Your father and brothers loved the non-fiction section. The boys always went to the non-fiction shelves within the children's library section. Eric always asked, is that true? If not, he wanted nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteYou might try "real" books--with big photographs.
Reed, as much as he would rather play the computer than read, has started searching for books on the library computers on his own and he looks for mysteries and adventures. He really liked the Secrets of Droon, and he's also read the first three Harry Potter books. Have you tried those?
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