My kids’ school doesn’t have a library, and I think this is a great shame.  Brick-and-mortar book houses–libraries, bookstores–are so important to children.  How else are they to stumble across Dickens, Twain, Kierkegaard, or The Three Investigators than by wandering alone and unshepherded through stacks and shelves and piles of wonderful, musty, magical old books?  Shall they partake only of the thin and sugary buffet of today’s best hits as determined by someone else’s algorithm?

I worry for the children who will never accidentally pick up The Secret of Skeleton Island, or Big Red, or Moby Dick.  Especially with the fearfulness that some educators are showing towards books…as if Huck Finn is going to crawl out from between the pages and lead our children on a lawsuit-begging rampage.  As if Hermione will encourage the young to pursue the dark arts instead of finishing their homework.

Do you remember combing through the obscure offerings of a library or used bookstore, and finding gems among the slag?  Finding new voices, new opinions, new stories that enhanced and added to your worldview?  What are some of the things you discovered that you never would have found had you been clicking through the advertisements of a digital marketplace?