The Book Fair broke my heart today. . .

So I’m in the  midst of my first Book Fair. It’s completely NOT what I expected, but that’s a story for another day.  Today, something completely unexpected happened – and it made me sad. 

I have several students who come to the library ALL the time. They read voraciously.  They are on my list of Top 10 readers.  One came in after school to get a book and had to tell me that he can’t find a book. He’s beside himself, because he thinks he lost it.  It will probably turn up, so I’m not worried about that at all! 

I have some new books that I haven’t put out on the shelves yet.  I got him the first book in  a brand new series today and let him check it out first. His eyes were the size of saucers!!! He couldn’t stop smiling – it was an experience like I’ve  never had before.

As soon as he left, with the brand new book, something hit me like a ton of bricks.  For a child who comes to the library all the time, he didn’t even look at the Book Fair stuff.  In fact, he didn’t even look in that direction.  I realized that another one of my Top 10 readers has not come into the Book Fair.  Then it hit me. I’d swear to you a light bulb popped up over my head. Here’s what I realized – both of these young men are very poor. One was in my class before and I know that his family doesn’t have a lot. The other student? There are some clues that his family doesn’t have much.  One of them takes a  backpack of food home on the weekends.  Here’s the sad part – even though they love to read and there are LOTS of NEW books in the Book Fair, right there! they won’t explore.  They won’t even look, because  they know they can’t afford them.  It almost made me cry.

My family didn’t have a lot of  money when I was little. Daddy was in college, Mom didn’t work until I went to school and then she worked in a bra factory.  Daddy was the janitor at the Lakeland Ledger – we were pitifully poor.  BUT, our parents always found Book Fair or book order money.  I’m not sure how – and we didn’t always get EVERY book we wanted, but we got something for books. Our parents realized the importance of fostering our love of reading – and sacrificed to encourage that. There’s nothing like opening a brand new book that no one else has ever read by you.  No marks except what I made.  No spine cracks, no pages turned down. New car smell has nothing on new book smell.   Unfortunately, these students don’t have that – and that’s what made me sad. 

There are lots of points I could make – the importance of libraries for kids like this,  how poverty affects education, how parents need to be educated on how to help their children.  There all important and all good points.  But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on that young man’s face when I handed him that brand new book to borrow.  I just wish I could give  him some brand new books for his own.