The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading

Libraries level the playing field. They’re free and open to the public. All are welcome. Our doors are open. Come in and learn to become your best self. Follow your dreams and reach your true potential. Let your reach exceed your grasp. Whatever book you want to read, it’s free on the honor system. It’s hard to imagine anywhere else in our society so devoted to the concept of everyone being completely equal.

Encouraging kids to read gives them tools to safely navigate the real world, and to protect themselves. Reading helps them think critically—and it gives them the opportunity to learn about themselves and others, to create empathy and compassion. – Lorrie Roussin

She says you should give a book fifty pages. But if you’re over the age of fifty, take your age and subtract it from a hundred. So, if you’re seventy, give the book thirty pages. Life is too short to waste on reading a book you’re not enjoying.

I belong in a library. I’ve always belonged at the library.

But librarians are not here to parent your children. If you can’t parent your children, that’s on you. And every family’s value system differs.

Beyond the costs, significant though they are, if I quit now I know it will irk me every month when I see that retirement check deposited in my bank account. I know that I will look at that money and think 'I let them do this to me.' I'm not going to let these sons of bitches pick my pocket in retirement. I keep thinking about the people who attacked not only me, but the books. They say it was for the first amendment. Well, I'm here for the first amendment too; we have that in common. They also say they did it to protect children. We've got that in common too. I'm all about protecting children and their right to information. If we can have a conversation and not a screaming match around these two foundational principles, there may be hope." Martha Hickson, a New Jersey high school librarian

I don’t know the title, but the cover is blue.” “What’s it about? Do you know?” “Dystopian, I’m pretty sure. And it’s long, about nine hundred pages.” I show her The Passage by Justin Cronin. “Yes!” the woman practically screams. “I can’t believe you found it!” There is no higher high than winning the “cover is blue” contest.

Life is too short to waste on reading a book you’re not enjoying.

But walk into an independent bookshop, and there’s a particular intoxicating book scent. It’s definitely not available online.

In my spare time, I’m usually reading. I always have a book with me. I read to escape.

1 in 5 Americans are readers.

The habit of reading books is not yet on the brink of extinction. Not yet. This is in no small part due to an elite corps of frontline workers, people who are holding that line, and sometimes even turning the tide. I'm talking about the thousands of booksellers and librarians working long hours to keep reading alive and getting little recognition for all that they do.

Texas Representative Matt Krause compiles a sixteen-page list of 850 fiction and nonfiction books that he believes “make students feel discomfort.

sobering statistics compiled by Literacy Inc., that 33 percent of high school graduates never pick up another book, and that 42 percent of college grads don’t either. Oh yeah, and apparently 80 percent of American families did not purchase a book this year.

I’m raising this child,” she tells them, “and if I have a problem with something she brings home from the library, she’ll hear about it from me. You won’t. So you let her have anything she wants.

The student storms into the library, calling for me at the top of her lungs. “Ms. Roussin, you’ve got to come here!” What did I do? This is the same girl who came to me a few days ago, reluctantly looking for a book to read for class. I’d handed her All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. She stands in front of me, still worked up. “Ms. Roussin, this is the first book I’ve read that had me in it.” It just blew her away.

Kids who like to hang out at bookstores are pretty special.

Today’s booksellers and librarians are extraordinarily good at understanding and motivating. Armed with empathy, wit, and professional training, they take the confused, the fearful, the frustrated, and help them become more keen-eyed, sharp-eared, and justice-attuned. What they do is crucial for this country, especially right now. They understand in their hearts and souls that in the beginning was the word.

Books have deep connections. People are always looking for books on big life events—relationships, breakups, deaths, grief, getting married or what to expect when you’re pregnant—and there’s nothing better than recommending books that can have a meaningful and positive impact on someone’s life.

Building literacy doesn’t even have to start with actual reading. I’ve seen little kids who insist on carrying around a Harry Potter book or a Paul Auster novel. Maybe they just like the colors on the cover. And that’s okay. The important part is that they are identifying as someone who totes around a big book. It doesn’t matter whether or not that child can truly read it. That child is loving that book. We can still celebrate it. It’s all a part of literacy development.

I could probably name my favorite books from each and every grade and I want kids to experience that same feeling, of realizing that books could teach me that the world isn’t always the way that people think or understand.

My favorite thing is helping people. Handing someone a book with the power to change their lives is magical because, oftentimes, it does.

Books are deeply personal. They’re so varied and vast. They have the power to distract us from our problems and to change our minds, to change our lives. To make us feel less alone.

So no, I don’t have to finish a book, because authors keep writing and publishers keep publishing new books.

I love authors. I think they are magical. People read books and say, Oh, this is really good. But I don’t think they realize how much work goes into writing a book.

care how you consume your books, whether you read them on paper, whether you read them on your Kindle or your phone or your tablet, or whether you are listening to them. I do all of the above, and it all counts, as far as I’m concerned. So I love it.

And a kid who reads is a kid who thinks.