Renee Mazin
October is when we celebrate National Book Month! Go to your bookshelf now and pick a favorite book to cuddle. If your bookshelf is bare, head to one of SaddleBrooke’s libraries: DesertView, SaddleBrooke One, or the Cholla Library at MountainView. The books are waiting for you.
Remember when you were a kid? You’d hear, “Go to bed now!” “Lights out!” “Stop reading by the hall light—you’ll ruin your eyes.” You’d say, “one more chapter,” but you couldn’t stop. You stayed up late with a flashlight and hid under the covers just to read a little longer. Sometimes you’d escape to read by locking yourself in the bathroom, not popular with your family. Then there was the time no one could find you because you were reading under your favorite backyard tree. You even brought your book to the dinner table and were admonished, “Put that away—we’re eating now!” Did car trips make you sick? You were focusing too long on the pages! At your school desk, you hid the book you were reading by using the oversized textbook as a shield. At a relative’s house, you’d sneak off into a bedroom and only emerge for dessert.
One of your proudest milestones was the day you signed up for your very own library card and didn’t have to use your parents’ card anymore. Now you could check out so many books and even go into the “adult” part of the library, discovering books about people, places, and things—so much to learn in quiet places where everyone was reading.
When you were older, you kept reading. In college you read and studied in the library when you could have been at the game. Later, you toted books to doctors’ offices, becoming so engrossed you almost missed your appointment when they called your name. The worst was the eye doctor when they dilated your eyes. You couldn’t see the printed page, but you tried!
If you flew, you took a book with you. Remember the time you hastily disembarked, leaving the book in the seat pocket. What did you do when you landed? You bought another copy. You may have repeated this scene in a cab or train, too. Then there were times you messed up a book because you always had to have one with you. There was the book with sand from the beach vacation. There was the book with food stains from eating at the picnic table. Confess: There was the book you accidently let slip, because you thought you could safely read in the bathtub! Remember the book you were going to gift to a friend? It looked so good that you read it first. It was so very good, you decided to keep it. Then you bought another copy for your friend.
National Book Month is also the month to reflect upon what a gift the SaddleBrooke Community Libraries are to all of us. Thank the volunteers who help keep it running. Thank the Friends of SaddleBrooke Libraries for funding our libraries with memberships and donations from everyone who loves to read. That’s what allows our libraries to buy all those new books and DVDs that you love! Please join to help our libraries thrive: www.sbfsl.org. We thank you!