Books
Over dinner with a bunch of college friends we tackled the interesting problem of a nine-year-old acquaintance with a library problem. She’s too young to receive a library card, she’s entirely sick of the Childrens’ Room, and she needs stuff to read.
I believe we’ve compiled a list of suitable titles that will hold her until she’s 21.
It’s disturbing that librarians still do this. I’ve always viewed Librarians as my natural enemy. For years, the Library was a contest between my wish to get access to The Good Books and the Librarian’s wish to make sure I stayed quietly in my place. You’d think, with all the discussion of the obsolescence and irrelevance of the library, the impact of new media, the notorious (though spurious) decline in attention span, the conversion of the public library to a place where everyone can use a PC, declining public support and plummeting budgets, they’d have figured out how to let book-loving children become library supporters.
Apparently not.