Tennessee Library Treasures Mar 30 '08    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: A Literature Unit From $8 Olivier Dunrea - Ollie From $7 The Bottom Line Visit your local public library where you will receive a free education. You owe it to yourself. Since it's impossible for me to write a book review, I thought I'd share some memories of my early days in high school where I found the library and learned to love it. I already had a love of books which took me far away from where I lived to places where my imagination ran rampant, and run rampant, it did! This short, scrawny hill girl became a princess living in a tower, a girl wronged and found justice, a career girl who ran her own business, a poor orphan who married a rich man taking her out of poverty, and as you can tell, all sorts of scenarios danced through my imagination. Each story had it its own happy ending. That was life to me; a story with a happy ending. I was 15 years old when we moved to a nearby town where I entered another high school leaving all my friends behind. My feelings were mixed but mostly I remember how scared I was. Scared of a huge new school and desperately longing for my old, smaller one! My first day of school was mortifying when I mistakenly entered the boys bathroom instead of the girls. Later, in my government class, a boy asked me if I put out? I asked, "Put out what?" My day certainly wasn't starting out on a promising note but that all changed when I met Miss Lucy, the librarian. I learned to love this woman and it was through her I learned it was not only OK to cry but it was also OK to laugh (young ladies had an image to maintain). She loved kids and those who loved learning gravitated towards her like a magnet. She captured my heart when she introduced me to Anne of Avonlea, written by Lucy Maude Montgomery. I don't think I'll ever forget the joy I felt when I first read this story, or the joy felt when I read it for the second, third or fourth time. That same joy was repeated when my youngest daughter fell in love with Anne of Green Gables with Megan Follows. We both laughed, cried and totally fell in love with Anne Shirley. Miss Lucy moved my mind forward with the sciences, literature and history, just to name a few. The Great War of the Rebellion captivated my young mind, and I must say here that a lot of what we were taught back then differs greatly in some area's of today's history on the subject. This has never been a win-win topic of conversation (or war). A select few of us were granted permission to eat lunch in the library every day. My new high school didn't have a cafeteria so we'd walk across the highway to the Sno' Cone, buy our meal (usually a hamburger or hot dog combo), and carry it back to the library where we discussed many things. The library had a smell. It was the smell of knowledge and one that remains with me to this day. No library has ever smelled like Miss Lucy's did but some have came close. One is the archives where I spent many hours with my genealogy research. Goodness, I loved it there! Another is the library where I worked as a librarian's assistant with two employee's under my eagle eye. All my (the library's) books belonged in their own niche and God help the employee who wasn't doing her job! There's magic in the library. Seek and ye shall find it. Tennessee is a pearl in the crown of America Copyright: ddustyrose March 30, 2008 This is my contribution to laurashrti’s National Library Week Write-Off Thanks Smorgy

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