Library books smell different than the sterile drawing and printing paper we’re used to holding. Library paper is yellowed, soft like thin leather, the corners folded and creased, the letters becoming translucent from the absorption of eyes, the transmutation of ideas from one brain to ink on paper back to another brain. I’m glad my kids see the excitement of going to the library, in this age of ready diversions and digitized fun.
I had to leave them alone for five minutes while I returned some library books and searched for others, but despite my fretting and constant checking I found them like this:
Number Two asked me which books we could buy and once he understood they were free to borrow he got locked up with the wealth of choices and got a movie instead. But it was free! CH came with an armful of books and we sat on the couch that night and began Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And the paper smelled good.
Writer, architect, father, husband.