If knowledge is power, then a library represents an awsome force - one into which anyone can tap. I first discovered this wonderous power when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I spent alot of time at my grandparents' house in those days, especialy during the summers, when both of my parents worked, and my brother and I were out of school, and one day I discovered the local library.
I'd been in that library before, but when I became old enough to walk the block-and-a-half distance by myself, I began to spend more and more time there. I'd started reading books at an early age, and couldn't afford to buy all the books that I wanted, so I started checking them out of the library. I began with one or two at a time, then four of five, then gradually increased to ten or twelve books at a time, returning them all, read from cover-to-cover, three or four days later. After I'd read several entire series of children's books, I began to peruse the shelves a bit more discerningly, looking for books that fit my taste. I would take a book off the shelf, begin reading, and sit down, oblivious to the world, often until I'd finished the entire book. I spent more and more time each day in that library, becoming more comfortable there, learning the shelves like one learns one's own home.
This particular library had a unique childrens section. Segregated from the rest of the library, it occupied one entire wing, and had huge windows which faced out to the playground of the elementary school next door. The section was surrounded by shelves, with some children's tables and chairs. But next to those big windows was a large sunken space, and sitting on the floor, with the window at my back, the sun streaming through onto the pages, the world melted away, and I was happy. Not just normally happy, but that kind of happy that wraps around you like a security blanket; the kind that penetrates your entire being, making you warm from the inside out; the kind of happy that you feel with your very soul.
I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, of course, as so few children do, but I did know that library was a very special place. Now, whenever I think of that library, a little of that happiness comes back to me; a little piece of my childhood resurfaces, and I'm again ten years old, totally immersed in a Jack P. McGurk mystery, or a Tom Swift adventure.
The last time I was in that library was several years ago. The wing that was once the children's section had been turned into the reference section. The little tables and chairs were gone, there were no toys strewn about, and the playground outside the window was dominated by a new elementary school building. But the window was still there... and the sun still shines through it.
And the books are still there.