I Brake For Librarians!

This week two librarians remind us what a difference books can make.
Pat Vaninwagen in Connecticut says:

"I have been a school library media specialist for going on 4 years but I
will never forget my first year and the boy who showed me that I can make a
difference. He was a second grader and arrived in the library in tears
because his teacher wanted him to take out a book to read during quiet
reading time. "Why are you crying?" I asked. He replied, "I just don't
know what I like to read." So we spent a few minutes talking about what
kind of books he liked and I took him to my favorite author, Dick
King-Smith, handed him Billy the Bird and encouraged him to read it.
Imagine my delight when he arrived in the library the next week, waving the
book and calling out "Have you got any more like this?" He had discovered
the joy of reading and I was reminded that a good librarian can help anyone
find a book that suits his or her style."


And Michelle Yu in Wisconsin tells us her favorite quote by Maya Angelou

“When I look back, I am so impressed again
with the life-giving power of literature.
If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of
myself in the world, I would do that again by reading,
just as I did when I was young.”

Thank goodness for school libraries and media centers. What would we do without them?

DID YOU KNOW???

Of the over 130,000 libraries in our country, nearly 99,000 of them are in schools, both public and private.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans have library cards!! Yay! But some of the most frequent users of libraries are parents with young children. Double yay!!

There is a national library symbol/highway sign.


Now all we need is a bumper sticker.


Thanks to ala.org for all the great statistics!