The Most Fascinating Library Post You Will Ever Read

Yesterday was a very exciting day.  Yesterday we got our library cards.  Now, you may be thinking, what is so exciting about that?  Well, I have gotten in the very bad habit of just buying books that I want to read, and when I decide I don't like the book, I am stuck with it.  So now, with my library card, I can borrow and return the ones I don't like!  I supposed I have to return the ones I do like, too, but that is a small wrinkle that can be overcome, I'm sure.

Our local branch of the Chicago Public Library is the Conrad Sulzer Regional Library.  It is an impressive building overlooking beautiful Welles Park.  Inside it is quite spacious, light, and airy.  The well-organized adult sections are upstairs, presided over by a giant clock that I secretly wish had magical clock powers to transport me to whatever land I'm inhabiting in my book.  It is not exactly beautiful but is clean and inviting, as a good library should be.

But the real joy is the children's section, downstairs and surrounding the check-out counter.  The library was filled with children, particularly small ones, carefully picking out their books for the week, cradling the most prized chosen book in their arms like it would disappear if they weren't careful.  One little boy was so excited, he couldn't stop staring at the cover of his book, a giant smile of pure joy creasing his face.
The children's section brought back such great memories for both of us.  For me, those memories were picking my own treasured books of the week with my mom and brother each week during the summer, storytime with Joan, my local librarian and childhood friend of my mom's, and the summer that I read over a hundred books...real books, not picture books...more than anyone else in the library's reading club.  My first summer "job" was volunteering several hours a week in that library.  But the best thing about this children's section?  It smelled like a library's children's section.  It appears that no matter the library, the children's section will smell the same: of hundreds and thousands of pages of sometimes old, always well-loved paper.  You might ask, doesn't the adult section smell the same?  No.  Why not?  Because they don't have storytime in the adult section.

The children's section, ostensibly organized by the Library of Congress system, was fairly chaotic.  Organization on the shelves did not really follow logic.  So while it was easy to find the travel section, or what I thought was the travel section, as it was clearly visible from the check-out counter, it was not easy to find the book.  What book?  THE book, the most important book that separates the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the super awesome libraries from the just ok libraries:  THE NORWAY BOOK!! 

What is the Norway book, you ask?  ONLY THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!  The Norway book is part of a series called Enchantments of the World, a series designed to introduce young, elementary readers to the various countries of the world and their histories and cultures.  I found the Norway book when I was in about the 3rd grade in my lower school library.  Despite weird looks from the parent volunteers, I checked it out, thrilled at my find.  The book was a revelation.  It told me ALL ABOUT NORWAY!  And from my reading of this book, I realized that Norway was clearly the greatest country in the whole world and this was the best book about the greatest country in the whole world.  Now I have absolutely no idea why I reacted this way, but I did.  I was in love with Norway.  My brother, who was in nursery school at the time, had a Norwegian friend, and I even wanted my mom to ask his mom if she would teach me Norwegian.  All of this because of a book.  I must have read that book at least 40 times.  Finally, Mrs. Germann, my favorite librarian of all time and now dear friend, told me, "Elizabeth, dear, you do know there are other books in this series, right?"  WHAT????  Mind. Blown.

This weird interest in a country I have no connection to continues to this day.  I absolutely love Norse mythology.  When I graduated from high school, Mrs. Germann gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card so I could pick out a "grown-up" version of the Norway book.  The only reason we did not go on our honeymoon to Norway is because Michel really did not want to go to Norway, and, for the sake of maintaining our new marital harmony, I did not press the point.  And I have actually read many of the other books in this series and learned a lot about our world.  I honestly think it was this series, and the Norway book in particular, inspired my love of travel.  But enough of the mushy book love.  I'm sure you are simply dying to know the answer to the all-important question:  Does the Conrad Sulzer Regional Branch of the Chicago Public Library have the Norway book????

YES!!!!