We miss you! While we hope you are using our
curbside and
personal shopping services, we can’t wait to see you in person. I know people are worried about so many things right now, including what it will be like to work AND support learning if you have kids in school. I want you to know that Sacramento Public Library is here for you. We’ve always considered ourselves to be an educational partner. After all, building lifelong readers who read for the sheer joy of it is our specialty. What does that mean in a pandemic?
A chance conversation with an avid library user, Catherine, brought home to me how much the library means to so many in our community and how important access to library services can be. In March, when she heard the news that schools were closing, she thought libraries would be close behind. On the last day our libraries were open she realized she would be hunkered down with four kids at home for the foreseeable future and couldn’t imagine not having access to books. She and her teenage son Joseph made a trip to the Belle Cooledge Library to stock up. Her words to him were, “grab anything that looks remotely interesting to you or your siblings.”
What do you read during a pandemic? Here are a few of the titles Catherine and Joseph carried home.
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry got her husband through the first several weeks of the pandemic.
- Personal History by Katherine Graham for Catherine. It was special to reread a book she had read years ago. She was reminded that we have been through difficult times and will get through them again.
- Plenty of graphic novels for the 13 and 10-year-olds.
- Ribsy, Beezus and Ramona and other titles by Beverly Cleary. The Ramona stories are truly timeless and have been a delight for her 7-year-old son.
- Enemy of the State by Vince Flynn and plenty of James Patterson for Joseph.
Now that school is starting, the Library is here to support students and their parents who might be feeling overwhelmed by remote learning. We will make sure that students who can
access learning online know about live tutoring, the wealth of resources we have that can help with projects and papers and do our part to see that the generation who is missing in-person learning knows that we are here for them.