Coming Home . . .

Coming Home . . .

For many of us entering a library, whether it’s for the public, a school or even our personal collections, it supplies us with a sense of homecoming.  In this space, an infinite number of stories are housed.  They enrich and enlarge our imaginations.  Through them we travel into the past, present, and future with greater understanding and compassion.  These stories give us answers to questions while leading us to more discoveries and answers we didn’t even know we desired.  Armed with the truths they provide, our knowledge of our planet and its inhabitants, plant and animal, grows.  Not only does our knowledge grow but so does our admiration for the complexity of intertwined systems functioning every second of every day.
For those of us who have spent most of our adult lives serving patrons of all ages in libraries, we are witness to the remarkable moments when readers are connected to the story they need or want.  We not only listen to them with our minds, but also our hearts.  This is how bridges are built between books and readers.  When that bridge is built, when that connection is forged, something nearly indescribable happens.  We see it in their eyes, their demeanor, and their body posture.  It is joy.  This joy is wonderfully expressed in words by John Schu and in artwork by Lauren Castillo in their first collaboration,
This Is A Story
(
Candlewick Press
, March 14, 2023).  This book shows us the power of story, our stories and the stories of others.
This is a word.
SEA
That word, sea, is then shown on a page, a page within a book.  That book is one of many on a shelf.  It is waiting on one of many shelves in a library.  (We are beginning small and keep seeing a larger view.)  When we step back farther, there are people in a city, a city with that library.
Some of the people in the city are traveling to the library, seeking help, help in finding answers.  That book, one of many on a shelf of many shelves, is given to a child by a librarian.  So begins the reading.  So begins a special connection.
There are other readers here, finding what they need and finding what they want.  In the pages of the books they read, their minds keep stepping back, (like we do in the beginning of this story) enlarging what is known, imagined, and hoped.  Each of these readers have something else, a valuable something else . . . hearts.  Their hearts will increase in their ability to make connections in the books they are reading and in every facet of their lives.
Walking through the doors of a library is walking into a
world of reading.
Like most seeds, this world starts with the tiniest thing and the youngest person.  An early interest is nurtured and encouraged to flourish.  It is nurtured and encouraged to flourish through a story.
With intention author
John Schu
builds his narrative, his poem, from a single word.  He takes us on a journey with that word until the book with that word is placed in the hands of a child by the l…