In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis recollects his childhood surrounded by books. Like his parents, he became an obsessive reader. And where that led is well-known. I also am a product of books, parents who read, who read to me, and a person who from childhood, became an obsessive reader. This was a constant tension in my life as digital books were nonexistent and available Braille titles were unequal to my demand. The state had one library for the blind, and I received books one at a time in mailing containers at lengthy intervals. My childhood fantasy was to be in a vast library of shelves full of books that I could read myself. Reflection leads to this as the source of Living Books Library, a collection of somewhere around twenty thousand books that fills the shelves of the lower level of my home today. It is full of all the books I loved as a child, and all those I would have loved if I could have read them all.
Naturally as a young mother I read continually to my children. I took them to the library, which was a little diminished from those I remembered from my childhood. Many great titles were there, but so many silly and second-rate selections had sifted in among them. My children loved books too, especially Emily who trotted to and from the neighborhood library with her little red wagon piled with treasure. Homeschooling led to Charlotte Mason,
which led to the discovery of living books instead of textbooks, which eventually led our family to Children’s Preservation Library in Cedar, Michigan. That was a dream come true for my children. Michelle Howard had collected the best literature for children, organized it for loaning to homeschooling families, and it provided abundant plunder, not to mention inspiration, for them until our family made a big move away to another state.
That is what returned me to the public library. We made a visit with high hopes and I came home in tears of despair. How could I provide rich resources to my children with that meager offering? Ironically, I now own as many titles as that little local library, but that is the happily ever after part of the tale. This experience was the motivation to start me on the quest to collect a library of my own. I knew my two hundred books would not be adequate.
I started by discovering the used bookstores in our area. My oldest daughter Emily would humor me by reading titles, but it was slow collecting. Then came one fateful library sale. My youngest daughter, who had been part of CPL, had an eye for “one of Michelle’s library kind.” I recollected owning Jan Bloom’s Who Should We Then Read? It contained 150 classic authors and lists of their books. Emily read that, found a few at our local Friends of the Library sale herself, read them, and was hooked. Soon we were haunting more bookstores, estate sales, flea markets, eBay. My husband’s new part-time job became building sturdy bookcases.
At first our challenge was finding the good old, mostly out-of-print titles, but it soon became finding space for them in our home. More crucially, if we were to make use of them, organization was imperative. I refused to have boxed up books, which I considered to be a recipe for not reading them. I had broad categories at first, obviously fiction and nonfiction, and within nonfiction history, poetry, literature, and biographies, but science challenged me. I read in someone’s book collecting advice to sort them by the days of creation. That soon proved to be cumbersome. Where were woodchucks? Should they not be near other rodents? Where should we put living books on molecules, or gravity, or bioethics? Clearly we needed a system.
A mile marker in the library journey occurred when we returned home one afternoon to find a mountain of boxes on the front porch—42 boxes. They were full of top-notch collectible books! Who had sent them? No return address. A mystery. A blessing.
Emily contacted Michelle back in Michigan to get ideas for a quick guide to the Dewey Decimal system. We found he had all the answers to where to put specific books, a genius categorical method. We soon became obsessed with how to label and repair and care for the treasure we found ourselves in possession of. Ironically, Emily was prepared for this work having spent two years of her work-study grant in college working in the library’s Tech Services. We thought of all of this as responsible stewardship of the gift of the books, but honestly, it was the most enjoyable hobby. Soon I had stacks of sorted books in orderly piles lining my walk-in closet, then lining the walls of my master bedroom. “We need more bookcases,” became the constant refrain.
Emily toiled for hours to enter each book into the database, label, and make them ready for those shelves. My conscience began to press me. (You can’t possibly read all the books you have gathered. What about your friends struggling to homeschool? Shouldn’t you love your neighbor as yourself?) I argued with that taunting voice. “Friends will not handle these books as they need to be if they are to survive. What if they abuse them, ruin them, or, worst of all: lose them? And, from a book read long ago, some words of Corrie Ten Boom immediately spoke back to me, her reprimand to a friend who was grieving over the shattering of a priceless porcelain vase, “Stop that right now. That vase does not have eternal life.” How could I deny others the life-giving power of living books?
So began the big debate about how and when and where to form a library. I had more reservations then. Our family lived on a shoestring budget (and even so, I spent precious grocery money to buy books if a gem came across my path!). I valued my clean and tidy home and the thought of many people, many children, tramping in and out of it was daunting. I comforted my doubts by supposing that not that many people would be interested. We decided to start small. But how? The CPL back in Michigan had a collection of plastic totes each containing one of the Five-in-a-Row titles accompanied by supplemental books to expand the themes of the title picture book. My preschooler had loved them. Not many in our area knew anything about homeschooling other than with box curriculum from the big homeschool companies. Perhaps offering these books would help families get a taste of what living books offered for educating children. It seemed manageable, except, we did not own many of the FIAR titles, much less all the helpful supplemental books.
The thought came to me out of the blue, What about Kim R. back in Michigan? She had started a library like Michelle’s, but had had to close early on. She had patiently read titles of books she was selling off over the phone to Emily. (Bear in mind, this was back before high-speed internet and Zoom meetings!) I wondered if she had any of the FIAR totes she had put together. I nervously called to broach the subject with her. I knew they were her treasure that she had never wanted to part with. When I tentatively asked if she might be willing to sell them, she was dead silent. (Oh no, I thought, I have offended her!) Finally, she spoke. “I cannot believe you are asking me this. I just sat down at my computer to type a list of all these books to put on eBay.” I gulped at the price she quoted and said I would get back to her as soon as possible. We had two of our children’s weddings coming in the next six months. Did I mention our tight budget? Where was I going to get the money? Considering all the work she had invested in collecting, her price was reasonable. We prayed. I had a beautiful guitar that was my pride and joy, but so little time to use it. If I could sell it, would it be worth it to have children grow up on all my beloved childhood reading?
Swiftly, everything fell into place. Guests driving to Virginia for the first wedding were recruited to bring boxes of books along. Emily prepared them to be ready for borrowing. Together we attended any homeschool meeting in the area to show the books and extol the beauty of living books. We held an informational meeting in our living room for anyone interested. Fifteen local families paid a small membership fee for the privilege of borrowing these bins.
The decisions to charge and policies for the patrons were where my experience came to the rescue. I had not understood fully why Michelle had insisted on such stringent book handling rules until it came time to put mine into the hands of others myself. I have never regretted putting rules inplace, though we have adjusted them over the ensuing years as we gained experience with books and people. Every library day we would carry up the boxes of books and arrange them in our dining room. Emily would check them out to the families.
The rewards were not long in coming. We started receiving phone calls and emails from mothers who were thrilled with the enthusiasm their children showed for reading. Apparently, the introductory books were breathing new life into their homeschools. Best of all were the children’s reports when they came back, the pictures they had drawn for us, the stories they had to tell about the adventures and information they were gobbling up. It was all very encouraging. I still possess a note one mother wrote that Christmas, “Thank you for sharing these books. They have allowed me to teach in a way I had only dreamed of, but did not know how to make possible!”
Our library tale is a long one, and that is only the beginning. In retrospect, I am so thankful we did not dive in with all the shelf books we were preparing, because about the time we were getting comfortable with loaning out the FIAR bins, we decided to sell our home, move to the country, and buy a farm. I had four children at home and showing a house packed with books was not an optimal strategy. So back into boxes all the books went to be stored at a friend’s company’s warehouse. But Emily continued to process books, trekking back and forth to haul a box or two at a time home for more labeling and data entry. The house sold, and the books went into storage while we remodeled a shack on the property to become our living quarters. We missed the books.
Once settled into our 900 sq. ft. humble abode, we began scheming how we could still do a library. There were only four children at home now, but still, toys, a piano, and no extra room. Where there is a will, as they say, there is a way. We wondered, always the beginning of adventures, if we might divide the mostly open floor plan by placing bookcases back-to-back to divide up the space, which would allow for about 3,000 books in our collection to be available. Why not? That was the stage in which we filled our van with boxes from the storage unit, hauled them home, and began having book parties. Would not our friends want to come over and learn how to clean, tape, glue, cover, and label books? My job was paying for materials and making lunches for the helpers. Emily devised a proficiency scheme, and only once trained in the most basic book clean-up would someone be promoted to a more technical facet of book repair. It was all in fun, but the competition to achieve was in the heart of all the helpers.
Unbelievably, we found ourselves ready to loan out books within three months of purchasing the property. In the meantime, besides house and book prep, we had entered the world of bar codes and bought a scanner. Each member would have a code on their library card, which would stay in the library. We began working out the details of how often to be open, how long the books could be borrowed, and frequency of renewals. Our difficulty at this stage is that we lived 20 minutes from the nearest small town. Would anyone come? We decided to be as accessible as possible in light of the distance and were open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. three days a week. This involved moving much of our furniture out of the living space and into the two bedrooms each day before we opened and returning it for use after the last patron left. But again, the reward was having a nine-year-old girl come leaping through the door announcing, “I’m here for My Friend Flicka,” or for a mom to call me breathless with excitement because her son had requested to not run errands that morning so he could stay home to read his latest Dan Frontier book.
I could tell stories all day long like this, apathetic students suddenly enthused about history, reluctant readers realizing it was worth it to get to read the next exciting adventure, and the ho-hum drudgery of teaching suddenly full of sparkle for the moms. Within a year we had arrived at about 8,000 books ready for check out. “Do you have any books on worms?” would be met with our chagrin to realize we had but one. The quest for more books to round out the interest areas and complete series was like an addict’s need for more and better supplies. I began calling school librarians in the region a year before and we frequently received calls that there were quite a few books being culled, if we would be interested in looking. These were the days in this part of the country when libraries were being converted to computer labs, sad for the students, joy to us.
All the books the modern librarians considered out of date and irrelevant were exactly what we were looking for. As Emily gently asked one of them once, “What is wrong with this beautifully illustrated book on butterflies? Has science recently discovered anything revolutionary about them?”
One time a librarian was embarrassed when we arrived with our carts to load up on her discards. “The principal needs to speak to you first.” Her concern was that we would be loaning these books to homeschoolers, when the books had been intended for public school children. We assured her we would not be selling them for profit and that as taxpayers, homeschool families deserved the castoffs.
We kept improving our service. A friend built a custom program for our computer to allow electronic check-out. We emailed families the list of titles they had borrowed. A year after opening we were able to buy a larger home on the adjacent property, remodeled the two-and-a-half car attached garage, and back-breakingly boxed up books and hauled them to their new home. Two years after our first opening day, we had to limit membership to 50 families, most of those driving 20 plus miles one way to come for the books.
Our knowledge of the books and of the children grew astronomically. We began selling duplicates to fund our constant need for book repair supplies and, of course, more books. While in the “shack” Michelle had asked Emily to moderate the homeschool library yahoo group. We all began selling and swapping with one another, asking and offering advice of one another. In 2012, we had another one of our “bright” ideas. Why not have a library conference? Naturally, the wannabe and fledgling homeschool librarians around the country were eager. We invited. They came.
A church around the corner let us use their meeting hall, the Books Bloom trailer arrived to supply books for sale, and Emily and I planned hotel accommodations, useful workshop presentations, and meals at our home. Robin Pack and Jan Bloom shared their living book experiences for motivation, and Emily and I covered the practical aspects. Mostly, the 25 participants (plus husbands and kids) wanted to hang out in the library and pick our brains.
More moves were also in our future. Six years after moving into the garage, we sold the farm and moved 30 miles away due to my husband’s job. Emily had married and had a second baby on the way by then. Again, we had to carpet and paint the library space, and assemble bookcases and refill them. This time there were 400 boxes to transport and unpack. We have put in countless backbreaking hours. Amazingly, we both still love books passionately. Our first A Delectable Education podcasts were recorded in that space, surrounded by the books, trying to spread the word about the power of living literature for children beyond Bristol, Tennessee.
Other crises occurred as well. The worst nightmare of our library years was the morning when we were about to leave to go to a basketball tournament for our son out of town. He came running upstairs to say that a fountain of water was shooting into the library. Frantically we called for help in every direction and, miraculously, seven hours later, with the hands of dozens, and the arrival of trucks and boxes from everywhere, the books were safely removed. We lost one bookcase, but not a single book. This, however, was just the impetus we needed to move from our temporary rental that had extended to four years’ stay, to find a new permanent home.
Finding a home to house the then near twenty thousand books was a feat, but God again provided for the books. It isn’t that they have eternal life, as Corrie once chided me from the pages of a book, but He does care about the life of the children they feed. The library is now housed in a finished basement that has its own fireplace (not that we dare bring fire into the library!), bathroom, and two entrances. Last week was the celebration of eighteen years of serving families. The books have been used by hundreds of children. I am so glad we spent the time, the money, and the energy.
To say this has been a journey is a bit of an understatement. There have been lots of ups and downs. Emily has birthed and is homeschooling four children. Since that conference 12 years ago, three other such libraries have opened in our area. Locations have changed, hours of availability have changed, and times have changed. The battles we had to convince people to read better books have now become battles to read at all. We no longer drive hundreds of miles to scour for books monthly. We do constantly read and research new books to find the one in ten thousand that is worth a place in our library. We continue to curate out of print books to round out the collection.
What is undeniable is that to live surrounded by books has enriched our lives immensely. Toddlers who started reading Five-in-a-Row books are now in college. The relationships and experiences are incalculable. What joy it was one day years ago to overhear a library child questioning my five-year-old in the middle of that humble little shack. “You guys are poor, aren’t you,” said the patron child. “No,” denied my little boy, “we have millions of books!” Many times over we have been surprised by such joy, and what keeps us going still is “the joy set before us,” the joy of life being given to the next generation through timeless living books