From: Linda Leopold Strauss <strauss>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 17:15:32 -0400

I have loved this topic. I, too, had a life-changing librarian--in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, some sixty years ago. I learned to read very early, and when my parents took me to get a library card, the librarian said I couldn't get a card till I went to school. When my parents explained that I could read, she agreed to test me: my father sat me up on the high circular check-out desk (which was taller than I was) and I managed to read a sheet of paper on which were written the library rules. Victory! I don't remember if there was an actual written rule on that sheet of paper about not getting a card till one was in school, but if there was, that wonderful librarian broke it. She also broke other rules for me: first graders could take out one book at a time; second graders, two; etc. I always got to take out as many books as I wanted, and I remember going home with piles of the
"colored" fairytale books, Red, Blue, Green, Silver. I can still remember exactly where they were on the library shelves. What bliss!

 

Thank you, librarians everywhere!

 

Linda Strauss

 

 

Linda Leopold Strauss

 

A Fairy Called Hilary (Holiday House, 1999)

Really, Truly, Everything's Fine (Marshall Cavendish, 2004)

 
Received on Wed 24 May 2006 04:15:32 PM CDT