Thank you, librarians everywhere 📚🙏

Miss Janelle was the best!

Back in 2012-15, our family lived in Amherst (a suburb of Buffalo), New York. We arrived on Labor Day just as school was starting, when our kids were 12, 9 and 7. Having never been to Upstate New York, I had no idea what to expect. The only connection to the area was when I drew up my vision board several years earlier and had surreptitiously thrown “Niagara Falls” on there, thinking it would be a fun place to visit. I laughed when we arrived, and I realized we now “lived” 20 minutes from Niagara Falls. Be careful what you manifest- this stuff really works!

But back to the story, with two in grade school and one in middle school, I decided to join the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in order to meet some other people by volunteering at the school. Nearly a decade later, while attending the American Librarians Association (ALA) Conference this past weekend, I was reminded of our time there. One of my favorite experiences was volunteering in the grade school library at Heim Elementary School.

It was a sweet and very typical grade school library, where parents dropped in to help re-shelve books. There was an assistant librarian, whose name I’ve thankfully forgotten, who would bark orders at the parents and even more so at the cute little kids. “NO, John, you already have 3 books out, you can’t take another one out today!” I always felt so bad for the little first grader who just wanted that Star Wars book and promised to bring the other ones back tomorrow, but inevitably walked away empty handed for the day.

But the real magic of the Heim library was the head librarian, Miss Janelle. She had been their dozens of years. She was in love with the books, she knew each and every one of them. Her eyes lit up when a child would mention a book they wanted to read. She was firm, but always kind to the littlest ones and she had their rapt attention from the moment they sat “criss-cross applesauce” on the carpet to listen to story-time. If it was Fall, she was telling stories of pumpkin patching or of the first Thanksgiving. In the Winter she’d read some tales of Narnia, and in the spring, she’d be sharing fun Leprechaun or Easter stories. I often found myself tucked away behind the shelves quietly re-shelving books, but mostly leaning in to listen to the yarns Miss Janelle would spin and to the beautiful curiosity it would stir up in the kids.

These memories flashed before my eyes this past Friday as I listened to the keynote speaker for the conference, author and comedian, Trevor Noah, share his love of books and how, back in South Africa his family was too poor to have a bookshelf or own any books, “But I always enjoyed escaping to the little library around the corner where my imagination could take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

Libraries are indeed magical places and SO needed these days not only for books but also for voting. Trevor spoke eloquently about his confusion over banned books, “I never saw anyone decide they were gay because they read about it in a book.”

I was thrilled my publisher, Independent Publisher Group (IPG) and Triumph Books asked me to come to a book signing during the conference. I met librarians from literally all over the world, from Fresno to Charlotte, from New York City to Hanoi and was thrilled with the warm and welcome response I received to them wanting to share my book in their libraries.

One. book. at. a. time. Just keep swimming!

For those of us in the US, Happy 4th of July to all! Grateful for those who have helped make and maintain our freedom! Most of the kids are home (Kylie is off in Switzerland living her best life at the moment!) and we’ll be taking in the beach and some fireworks!

Much Love

Kir

P.S. Speaking of Books and Librarians 📚❤️📚❤️…

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