This book's for you....

I stopped in at the local library today, to look around their books-for-sale room. That's my favorite part of the new and expanded library here... the special room just so patrons can browse the shelves and buy books. Prices are low, from ten cents to fifty cents for children's books, from fifty cents to three dollars for adult books. Most of the children's books are just a quarter, most of the adult books are one dollar. And most all are in only-read-once condition, which is extra nice.

I hardly check books out of the library anymore. I just don't want to be confined to a time-limit with the books I read, and most of the books I'm reading these days are books that either end up on my own shelves or are given away to our friends with their party gifts. When I was going to the library on a weekly basis, I was reading more "fluff," rather than reading "substance." So my method keeps me away from mindless, light reading.

The books-for-sale room at the library is set up like a miniature bookstore, with floor to ceiling shelves, non-fiction arranged in categories, fiction arranged by author. While I was looking through the travel section, I heard the other woman in the room talking to the clerk at the desk. The woman was Mexican, speaking with a beautiful accent, explaining to the clerk that she and her whole family were taking English-Speaking classes so they would be able to "talk much much better."

She also told the clerk that their teacher encouraged them to have their own books at home, so they could read books "whenever we want, even if we can't come to the library that day." The woman asked the clerk to tell her how much money the books would cost (the ones she had already picked out and put on the desk). She had a pile there, and the total was seven dollars and change. The woman said she just had "five dollar" to spend, so she eliminated one book and asked the clerk to give her a new price for her pile of books. It still wasn't five dollars or less, so she stood there trying to eliminate one more book.

By that time, I was watching all of this, instead of looking at the books on the shelves. I could see the woman had three books for adult reading, and about nine books for children. As I watched her, she was trying to decide between giving up one of the adult books, or two of the children's books. There was no one else in the room except for the three of us, so I went up to the desk and told the clerk to let her have all the books she had picked out, and I would pay for those that she couldn't afford.

The Mexican woman told me that I didn't have to do that... that she could wait till "payday next week for the rest." I told her that the books she picked out may not be there next week... that I knew I didn't have to do it.... but that I wanted to do it. "You sure?" she asked me. I'm positive.

So that's what I did.... the Mexican lady was happy beyond belief, and I was happy too. It was just a few books, just a few dollars. After all my years of working in the library up in NY, and more years still of just plain loving books and loving words and loving to read, it just made me sad to think that the woman in that book room had to decide which books she could afford to buy and which she had to put back. Had I been the clerk behind that desk, I would've given her the books she wanted at the price she could afford. Whatever the library doesn't sell in that room will be put outside the building at their book sale anyway and they'll be selling for much less than the inside prices.

I wish I had thought of that while I was talking to the Mexican lady... I would've told her to make sure she comes back to the library for the outdoor book sales.