To Librarians Everywhere: Angels That You Are.

Dear Librarians,

Once again, you have pulled through for us. For the first time in a long time (since I was a girl marathon reading with my own mother), I have had to “share” a book. And when I say ‘share’ I mean it very loosely, a better definition would be sheer literary subterfuge as I snatch said books from a sleeping daughter and she, as cleverly, klepts mine into her backpack as she rushes off to school.

It all started when I decided that I’d better take a book to Disneyworld to read to the kids. I picked a book I’ve been wanting to read: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. I started reading it out loud to them at Disneyworld and right away Lily wanted to ‘read ahead.’ So she started taking it—and—let it be known that I also wanted to ‘read ahead’ and so the battle began. Luckily I had the foresight to download it onto some i pods—but Lily and I both prefer reading to listening…so it continued to be a fight for the book. I also made the mistake of leaving it out while my brother-in-law was here and he started reading it too. Now it was even being stolen and taken out of the house! There were three of us reading one book…and none of us were going to finish it because most of our time was spent coming up with elaborate plans to steal the book. This had to stop. On Tuesday Jane and I walked to the library and I pleaded to you to help me. You didn’t even bat an eye and within five minutes had two book ones for me, a book two, and two book twos on hold in neighboring libraries. I spent the rest of the day driving from library to library (I couldn’t even wait a day for them to deliver to my library) to get all the books. Whew. You saved our lives. We can read now, quietly, without guilt and in perfect harmony—no more middle of the night ninja larceny. In time, we may even be able to laugh about it.

I also happen to know some librarians personally and know how seriously they take their jobs and how grateful we are to you for always finding us what we need; be it new recommendations for a voracious eight-year-old, Star Wars encyclopedias for a six-year-old padawan-in-training, and princess recommendations for Alice in Whineyland and Jane the Beguiling Terror. We will return our books promptly and pay our sixty cent fine (from some previous minor infraction). We thank you, once again with humility in our hearts and apologize to any local Rick Riordan fans as we have literally cleaned the Library of any evidence that he even existed.

Our hearts are with you always—faithful, dutiful Librarians.

With deepest regard,
Emily Prusso