The Fast Food Library

I walked into a local library last Saturday and coming up behind me in the doorway was a little girl (with piggy-tails, of course) who shrieked, "This is so exciting!"  It wasn't "This. is. so. exciting."  She was genuinely happy to be there, and her enthusiasm was so contagious, that I found myself also thinking "Thisissoexciting!" My son looked up at me and grinned because he knows that kind of reaction to the library experience makes me want to hug people and cry. 


This kid really GETS it.  She gets libraries the way I do.  She GETS that libraries are fun, fantastic places that you can stay for HOURS just looking around and watching people.  (Not in a creepy way, of course.  The focus is the books, not the hottie in the stacks.)  She gets that for the rest of her life, she is a captive audience to anything with a cover and words that flow through the imagination like she's actually living the words herself.

Piggy-tail girl is dragging her mother past me and is practically bouncing out of her shoes with excitement when her mother says, "Hurry and grab two.  Let's go."

Yeah...talk about wanting to cry.

I GET people are in a hurry, but the library experience, for some, HAS to be savored.  We're not at McD's where it's the same thing every time.  We're not just ordering a pizza and the toppings are going to be the same as last time.  This is new stuff.  Each and every time.  It has to be absorbed.  It has to be experienced.  Each nugget has to be discovered and chewed on  s l o w l y.

Slow down, for heaven's sake!  Foster this young enthusiasm into a gift of joy that she can experience forever.  And yes.  She can have fries with that.
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