“summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots,
or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat;
it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”
– harper lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
one of my all-time favorite books and movies and here were are once again, in summer.
i even played ‘scout’ once in a scene of a play, and it was something.
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credits: j.b. lippincott & co., universal pictures
Wake County Bookmobile driver and librarian India White, July 1966.
White drove the Bookmobile all over the county for over 20 years. Her route changed daily but rotated monthly, visiting mostly rural locations in the county and homes of the elderly or disabled. She had dozens of assistants over the years, many either not able to learn the routes or drive a manual transmission (one of the crucial prerequisites for the job). A life-long resident of Raleigh, she devoted her entire career to the Wake County Library. White died in 2000 at the age of 92.
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“literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. it is a tool for daily life in modern society.
it is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development.
for everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right..
literacy is finally, the road to human progress
and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
-kofi annan
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credits: vintage america uncovered, state archives of north carolina, news and observer
72-year-old bookseller, Mohamed Aziz, in Rabat, Morocco, spends 6 to 8 hours a day reading books. Having read over 5000 books in French, Arabic, and English, he remains the oldest bookseller in Rabat after more than 43 years in the same location. When asked about leaving his books unattended outside, where they could potentially be stolen, he responded that those who can’t read don’t steal books, and those who can, aren’t thieves.
in honor of independent bookstore day, yesterday, and every day
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credits: s. kahn
reasons why that reader is frowning:
1.they just read the book they put off for 393,348 years and it’s excellent, why didn’t they read it sooner?
2. they are in a fight with their to be read pile and it is winning.
3. someone just said, “why don’t you read the books you have before getting more?”
4. all of the above.
5, ?
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“let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
~ voltaire, born in 1694.
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credits: good living, paper fury
“oh how I love to read, she thought. ihe whole world gets bigger.”
— Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet The Spy (1964)
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i always was interested in detectives and spies, and books were a way for me to feel a part of it.
without any real danger, but just enough suspense…
on international book day
happy it’s friday
and have everything i need for my *book club with friends tomorrow.
(*we love books, sometimes read the same ones, and enjoy sharing our real life stories)
on my way…
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“it wasn’t until my fifth or sixth book where i realized i’m trying to do the same thing in every story I tell,
which is bring everybody together in the same room.”
-Kate dDiCamillo,
*kate is an american children’s fiction author. she has published over 25 novels, including Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Tale of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Magician’s Elephant, the Mercy Watson series, and Flora & Ulysses. John Newberry Medal winner.
while kate’s books are geared toward children and young adults, her books appeal to all ages. i find her writing incredibly beautiful and she is one of my favorite authors.
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photo credit: etsy vintage
how interesting to see how different cultures/languages might start their books. the last one is pure fun.
how do stories start in your culture/language?
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how some have responded:
Hungarian tales mix a lot of them, but my favourite is like: “Once upon a time, where it wasn’t, far beyond the glass mountain, where the short-tailed piglet roams, there lived a(n)….”
My mother used to say “When Donkeys wore high hats and Hyde Park was a flower pot “
Romanian : “There was once, as if never, because if it weren’t, the story wouldn’t be told”
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“we are the storytelling animal. “
-salman rushdie
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source credits: StoreyBook reviews, erma bombeck writers workshop
*celebrating world read aloud day
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“we have an obligation to read aloud to our children. to read them things they enjoy. to read to them stories we are already tired of. to do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.”
-neil gaiman, english author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and screenplays
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art credit: ‘gnome’ by rien poortvliet, illustrator
what book would you want to add to this little library?
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“without reading, we are all without light in the dark, without fire in the cold.”
-tamora pierce, american fantasy fiction author
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source credits: littlefree ibrary.org
this is what happened when a swedish library accidentally left a door open
The Gothenburg City Library in Sweden was supposed to be closed last Saturday, but staffers accidentally left a door unlocked. One might imagine that could lead to thievery or destruction, but what actually happened was quite the opposite: Residents simply used the library as usual.
The city said nearly 450 people visited the library that day and 246 books were borrowed. “Nothing was destroyed. It’s absolutely fantastic that you as a Gothenburger come into an empty library and treat it so lovingly,” operations manager Anna Carin Elf told radio station P4 Gothenburg, per the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
Arvid Jadenius was among the visitors, alongside his wife and 2-year-old son, and didn’t know anything was amiss until he saw the news on social media.
“It felt good that everyone behaved exactly as usual, they borrowed books, read the newspaper, and so on,” he said in an interview with Göteborgs-Posten, adding, “The citizens of Gothenburg take care of their library. There is obviously a desire to be there.”
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source credits: P4 Gothenberg radio, Dagens Nyheter
I didn't have my glasses on.... 