I recently received an email from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation informing me that Library Giving Day is Tuesday, April 4, 2023. I’m a big supporter of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, so I decided to find out more about Library Giving Day. After a few email exchanges with various people associated with our public library, I ended up getting in touch with Jenni Gaisbauer, the Executive Director of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation. She provided me the following statement about Library Giving Day:
Next Tuesday, April 4, is National Library Giving Day, a day where library advocates join together to raise crucial funds that add more to the story. More programs, more access, more story times, more tutoring sessions, more digital literacy, and of course, more books. I hope you will join us in celebrating our Library by making a gift of any level. Let’s continue the legacy of free access to information and learning opportunities for everyone in Mecklenburg County and beyond.
For more information about Library Giving Day, please click on the following link: https://foundation.cmlibrary.org/library-giving-day/
One of the reasons why I am supporting Library Giving Day is because our public library system provides the children in our community with memorable and meaningful experiences. When children visit their local library, they do more than check out books or participate in various programs. They also gain a sense of agency. They can select what books they want to take home. They have opportunities to ask questions, make requests, and express opinions. They might just be eight years old, but the librarian treats them as a unique patron, not just another kid in a large class. They also gain a sense of belonging to a community. They interact with other children in a safe space where everyone is welcome. Such experiences help make a trip to the library a special event for many children.
As an English professor with an expertise in children’s literature, I am aware that special library experiences figure prominently in the pages of some wonderful children’s books.
In Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Matilda is a frequent visitor to her local library where she regularly interacts with Mrs. Phelps, the librarian in charge of the place. Mrs. Phelps not only helps Matilda find the books that appeal to Matilda, but she fosters Matilda’s sense of self-worth by respecting Matilda’s intelligence and reading tastes. Matilda’s positive experiences at the library help her cope with the negative environment that she experiences at home.
In Christopher Paul Curtis’s Bud, Not Buddy, Bud also sees his local library as a special place. As he says, “The air in the library isn’t like the air anywhere else.” When Bud visits the library in the beginning of the book, the librarian takes him seriously and provides him with clear answers to his questions. She explains to Bud what an atlas is and helps him figure out how long it would take for him to walk from Flint, Michigan, to Chicago. By answering his questions, the librarian helps Bud feel valued. He doesn’t like the news that he learns at the library, but he doesn’t feel dismissed or ignored simply because he is a young African American boy.
In Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family, the five Jewish immigrant sisters who are featured in this novel all visit their local library in the beginning of the story. These girls live in a Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side of New York City during the early years of the 20th century, but when they go to the library they interact with people from other ethnic and religious backgrounds, including the librarian. The sisters’ positive experiences at the library help them feel connected to people outside of their immediate neighborhood.
In Pat Mora’s Tomás and the Library Lady, Tomás, the son migrant farm workers from Texas, spends his summer in a small Iowa town where he often visits the local library. When he first enters the library, the library lady welcomes him and invites to sit at his own table. She then asks him what he would like to read about. He says that he is interested in “tigers” and “dinosaurs.” She brings him a pile of books about tigers and dinosaurs, and this starts their summer-long relationship. She introduces him to many books, which he often reads aloud to her. At the end of the summer, Tomás returns to Texas, but he continues to feel a sense of connection with the library lady with whom he shared so many stories during his summer in Iowa.
All of the children in the aforementioned novels look forward to their visits to their local libraries just as so many children in our community look forward to their visits to the local branches of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. By supporting Library Giving Day, we can help provide the children in Storied Charlotte with the sort of affirming and community-building experiences that often happen when children go to the library where the air isn’t like “anywhere else.”