Thank you,

Valentina

So many memories of books.

Love…… always and in ALL ways,

A few weeks ago, I visited a very small memorial library at an Native American tribe, to see what services it had for families and their children. The assistant there seemed annoyed at me as an outsider coming in there and ‘expecting things to work the same as in other libraries’. She went on to complain that ‘they (Native Americans) never return the books anyway’ So, I asked if she didn’t want me to spread information on the library? She just gave me
a; ‘pfftt’. I mentioned that probably any other library in the entire world have the same problem, and they just deal with it, by charging a sum for late return, or even bringing people to court for not returning books (which is way out of line for a service supposed to foster love for reading, in my opinion).

Anyway…this is hard to admit… But once…I myself…stole a book! I found the book a place I would never be able to return to, and it is a book with the most essential meaning for something very deep inside myself…the book probably doesn’t cost more than $20. So I took it, and kept it quite awhile. Till one day, my conscience came to my attention, and I was going to confession. The priest told me to return the book, which I did. Not until I made a copy, I do enjoy immensely, and which I do share from when the opportunity is there, but which I never paid a cent for…(I was a student with very little $$$…not that it is an excuse) Extremely embarrassing…but I’m glad I did it, and would do it again!!! The poor people who owned the book, told me they didn’t even notice the book was gone…and now probably has much more enjoyment that the book had such a value that I wanted it so much? (Told you guys I’m a bit crazy) *giggles*

x Monika ;-)

Our local library, humble as it is, with it’s one room, has a reading program for kids, where each Saturday a volunteer comes in to read aloud to a group of kids who are not there. No one comes. Sometimes maybe one or two, or in the colder winter months, three. They fidget, the squirm – they’ve been brought by their moms, forced into leaving behind the television for an hour, and they’re essentially ready to go before they get there. They’re ready to go do something more “fun” than reading books.

Can books be too readily available, I wonder? So available that we take for granted the great gift of reading and the treasures hidden within the pages of a book.

When I was a kid growing up here, there was no library in town. There were no big bookstores, like Barnes and Noble or Borders, within driving distance either. No bookstores at all, in fact; not around here. There was no superstore like WalMart, where all things are made available. The grocery store didn’t carry books. The few books that I had when I was a kid, I ordered, via a catalog that was passed out, once a month, at school – sent home by the teacher. And I was really very lucky, because most of the kids in our school didn’t have the money to order from that catalog. I knew this, and it was a very special thing. I still remember the anticipation of waiting for the new book. (I was usually not allowed to order more than one at a time.) The books would arrive, along with the new catalog, a month after the order was placed. The teacher would announce that it was “book day” and she would have a cardboard box sitting on her desk. One by one, she would pull out these crisp new books, and call out the names of the lucky students who had ordered them. When I got that new book in my hand and sat back down at my desk, waiting for the teacher to finish, it would be like holding a diamond in my hand – something shining and radiant and pure. I just couldn’t wait to get home to begin reading it.

Now, my dad couldn’t read (still can’t), so I was never allowed to read in front of him. I suppose my mom worried that it would make him feel guilty for his shortcoming. It wasn’t his fault. His parents were poor farmers and he was the first born of eight. Beyond third grade, for him, there was just never time for school. Even up until then, his attendance had been only sporadic. There were so many more important things to be done than learning to read and write.

So, anyway, I would read in the evenings, after school and after chores were done. But when my dad would come home – my mom would be in the kitchen, cooking, and she would see him, through the kitchen window, coming up the road, and she would yell out to me, “Your dad’s home!” – I would quickly hide my book under the sofa cushion where I had been sitting. This, for me, made the act of reading something forbidden, the content of books, something precious and mysterious, like the secret mysteries of some occult society into which only a few were allowed entry.

At school we had a library. It was a small closet, in the hall, next to the principal’s office. Ours was a tiny school, no more than twenty-five to thirty students per grade, a total of around a hundred and twenty-five, grades one through six. And it was very rural, miles outside the nearest town, in a county still considered one of the poorest in the state. At that time, funds for schools in Texas came only from the local tax base. In other words, there was no attempt at equalization of the schools. In poor, rural or inner-city areas, the schools were poor. In rich neighborhood, the schools were wealthy. It was a system whereby privelege perpetuated priveledge and poverty begat further poverty. There was no justice in it, but that’s the way it was, and so, the school where I went, whose students were alomst exclusively the children of farmers and loggers, had barely enough money to keep its door open, none for a library.

Once a week, on Friday afternoon, we were lined up, by class, and paraded in front of “The Closet,” as we called it. The books inside were apparently divided up according to age and gender. We weren’t allowed to choose which book we wanted; it was chosen for us by the principal, who stood at the door of the closet and handed each child a book, at the same time taking back the book they had from the previous week. I remember reading tales such as “Black Beauty” and, later, “Little Women.” The boys were given books such as “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn.” In this manner, as the line passed by the door, where the principal stood like a sentinel looming above us, we were granted only a momentary peek inside at the thin volumes which lined the few wooden shelves. What a precious site – all those books! And if only we could get our hands on them, rummage through them at will! Ah, the sheer thrill created by the forbidden!

It is important to remember, however, that there was no sense of “want” or “deprivation.” At least I don’t remember any. We were children, and very isolated at that. We knew nothing of how other people in other places lived. We had no concept of what others had, or what we lacked, because we had no exposure to the “outside world.” Our world was small, perfectly confined. All we knew, or at least all I remember feeling in reference to books, was this most delicious sense of adventure. Books were scarce, therefore they were precious. They were forbidden, in so many way, therefore they must full of all sorts of unimaginable secrets. They were, all in all, hard to get, therefore they were treasure.

And I’m not in the least bit sorry for these early experiences. I really believe that this early relationship I had with books is what made me love so much both to read and to write. When I was a child, reading was a secret thrill. As I grew older, I realized that in the act of writing I could enter a whole other world and lock the door behind me. My writing was the one room I could enter where my father could not follow.

So, thank you so much, Paulo Coelho, for sharing this wonderful story with us, and the beautiful picture. When I think about those thieves, I am ever so glad they stole your book in preference to all others. As you say, books don’t change those who read them, but we are each, as human beings, in a constant state of spiritual evolution. Who knows – perhaps that thief lay down under a tree that very night, and by a firelight, read “Brida,” and maybe, just maybe, some spark within those pages kindled a mighty wildfire which, in time, would sweep clean his soul, making it ready for rebirth and new growth.

Love,
Savita

Angeline