Stories That Are Waiting

Dear YIES Students,

Putting stories away is a mess. First, you have to make sure they’re in the system. If they’re not, there’s cataloguing, there’s labeling, and then the final step, you shelve them. Making sure stories find their proper homes is a long process.

I’ve done this work before. I lived next door to a library growing up, and as soon as I was of the age when it was time to get a job, guess who was waiting to give me one? The librarians at the Maze Branch Public Library. They couldn’t wait to pass along that giant cart filled with so many books I’d have to use every muscle in my body to shove it across the room. I didn’t want to work in the library. I wanted to work at The Gap. I didn’t have anything to do with books, and books had nothing to do with me. What could old, dusty pages, or even brand new ones possibly offer me? Reading was work. Reading was hard. Reading was something you did at a desk with paper and pencils and after you did it, you had to make some kind of report about what you learned. No, thank you.

My parents had this rule once I got my Driver’s License, though. Somehow they figured that if I was going to drive their car all over the city of Chicago, I needed to be responsible for putting gas in it. Can you believe that? What nerve they had! I tried to point this out to them, but they wouldn’t budge: if I wanted to drive their black convertible, to the shelves I needed to go.

There isn’t anything more boring than shelving books, and to keep myself from dying from boredom, I started to read the back covers of the stories I was putting away. If they interested me, I’d read the inside flap to learn more. Sometimes I’d look at the author’s picture on the other end of the book, and sometimes, I would hide myself behind a bookshelf and read a page or ten. That’s how I found The Princess Bride and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It’s how I found Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Judy Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. Soon, I started piling up a stack of books to check out for the end of my shift. Sometimes the librarians would let me take them without checking them out. “We know where you live,” they’d joke and nod their heads toward the main room, past the fireplace. I’d look where they were leaning, and see my bedroom window from the windows above the fireplace. The library’s security lights glowed on my bedspread every night.

I guess what I’m saying is sometimes, if you’re desperate or adventurous, boredom can serve as an opening, and the last few weeks as I’ve been taking care of your stories, I’ve been reminded of that teenage girl I was years (and years) ago. I wasn’t looking for stories, but I think they were looking for me. Even though I didn’t have a good attitude about reading, I read, and reading changed me.

I admit, I’ve taken a peek at more than a few stories while I’ve been putting them away in your school library. I think some of you will like See You Later, Gladiator by John Scieszka. It’s a chapter book, but there are pictures in it, so if you are feeling intimidated by reading a full on novel, here’s a great place to start. The sentence on the inside flap reads: “Joe, Sam, and Fred are wrestling around in Joe’s room. Isn’t that how stuff always happens?” Indeed it is.

I read the sweetest opening in Silly Tilly’s Thanksgiving Dinner by Lillian Hobon. “It was Thanksgiving morning. Silly Tilly Mole was in her garden. The leaves were falling all around. ‘Summer is gone,’ said Tilly. ‘I can’t remember where it went.’” Do you ever read a story and feel it? That’s what happened to me when I read those sentences. All of the sudden it was the night before the first day of school and I’m looking for summer. Where did it go?

There’s a book called The Hundred Dresses and I have to tell you, I’m afraid to read it. I think it’ll make me too sad. There’s a little girl in the story who sits in the back of the classroom because she’s too shy or afraid to sit anywhere else, and she makes up stories. She reminds me of Bradley Chalkers in Lois Sachar’s There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. He also sits in the back of the room and makes up stories because he is afraid. Until, that is, someone tells him that no matter what he’s been told, there’s no such thing as monsters, and that everyone has some good in them. Some have to work harder than others to bring it out.

Maybe next year, you can read The Hundred Dresses with me. It seems like the kind of story you shouldn’t read by yourself. Besides, I really like to talk about stories. Talking helps me understand, and understanding helps me feel better.

I Hate Books! by Kate Walker is a book about a little boy who used to like books until third grade when someone told him reading was serious business. I’m afraid to read this story, too. I relate too much to that. I can remember loving stories until several tests decided that I could no longer read them. I had to do worksheets – skill and drill type of stuff that made my eyes water from boredom but also from sadness that I could no longer step into different worlds like Max and the Wild Things. Maybe we could read I Hate Books together, too.

Andrew Clements wrote a book called The School Story, and I thought it’d be fun to read that and write our own school stories. Because whether or not you think so, you all have a school story. I may not have been a great reader, and I still may be a particularly slow reader, but I’m really good at finding stories to write about. I can write a story for just about anything. I believe I can help you do the same thing.

Well, this letter is getting long, and these books aren’t going to shelve themselves, so I’ll close by saying I’m looking forward to being your librarian next year. I’m looking forward to helping you find stories, and talking to you about the stories you find, and that we find together. And if you walk into the library and feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities, or if you are worried that you can’t read a story by yourself, don’t worry. These feelings happen to me, too, and I’m here to tell you these stories are all very patient. They’ll wait for you. I know because they waited for me.

Have a great summer.

Love,

Mrs. Feyen