Every city with more than one library in it has a “good” library and the “other” library. If you grew up in a town too small for multiple libraries, there was almost certainly an adjoining township (or recently incorporated community, or burgh, or hamlet) with a good library that put your visiting bookmobile to shame. Whether you lived closer to the good library or the lesser branch affects your development for the rest of your life.
The good library had multiple floors, sometimes as many as three or four, and as often as not, an elevator. An elevator in a library!
The branch library had a carousel of paperbacks, all of which you have already read, for a kids’ section.
The good library was the place you first read something you weren’t supposed to, and the underside of your skin went cold and hot and cold again after you did it.
The branch library was less than a mile away from your house, which means that after you turned ten your mom let you walk there with a suitcase by yourself. By then you had read most of the books at the branch library, so you checked them out again.
The good library had a grassy area in front of the main entrance. The good library had a main entrance, and sometimes a fountain.
At the good library, you could spread out with as many books as you liked because all of the tables on the second floor were empty. Sarah Chladek never told you that your house smelled weird at the good library in front of everyone. You didn’t know what her house smelled like because you’d never been invited there, so you didn’t have much of a basis for comparison.
You had to wait to go to the good library, because your mom had to drive you there. And for your mom to drive you there, she had to be home from work and she couldn’t be too tired and she couldn’t be doing something else. At the good library the librarian would print a receipt of all the books you’d checked out for you, so you wouldn’t forget to bring any of them back.
The good library was an excellent place to feel rich, because you could accumulate everything you wanted without limit or exception. Unless they had a limit on how many books you could check out at a time. But still. It was close.
A final word from our own Nicole Cliffe:
