Surprise donation

Last night, while I was enjoying myself at a City Council meeting, my wife saw a car pull into our driveway. A gentleman got out, using a crutch, climbed our porch and knocked on our door. When my wife answered, he asked if this were the home of the Terry Dawson who donated the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to the public library.

She said that yes, I was the one who donated it. He told her that he had been out of work and laid up for some time. During that time, he appreciated using more of the library's materials, and in particular the F&SF magazines. He said that he hoped I would continue the donation -- which I've been doing for years.

My wife said that I would very probably continue the donation; he said he would like to ensure it and handed her a folded twenty dollar bill. She said that this was not needed, that I was the library director; he said that it was even better then that I was donating, and he wanted to help. Then he left.

After he was gone, she looked more closely and found that it was in fact five twenties that he had given her: $100 cash.

When I got home from the City Council, more than a little tired from the budget wars, she shared the story of what had happened. Of course, this made my day. We'll give the $100 to the library's materials budget. The library buy some extra fantasy and science fiction titles, thanks to this generous library user who wanted to show his appreciation and make sure we keep getting the magazine. And I'll definitely keep donating F&SF.

While we know many people appreciate what they get from the library, we don't always know who, why or how much. But every now and then, there's a pleasant surprise that helps us remember why we do this.

Librarians discuss summer reading

The Post-Crescent website featured a streaming video interview with three of our librarians, covering adult, young adult, and children's summer library programs. They included a chat module for people to submit questions. Cool beans, and a great job by our three staff and PC reporter Kara Patterson!

[obsolete link removed]

The power of collaboration: Fox Cities Book Festival kicks off

It's National Library Week, and for the third year in a row, it's also the Fox Cities Book Festival. Over the next eight days, 50 authors will appear at 18 venues, including libraries, schools, universities, museums and coffee houses. One of the first is occurring here at the Appleton Public Library, as Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, discusses her writing.

Each year's Book Festival is a huge collaborative effort, requiring a year of prep work. The Board includes representatives of all the local public libraries, plus public schools and higher education, as well as many community volunteers passionate about books and reading. A highlight is always the appearance of the Fox Cities Reads author, who will speak at many different area libraries and schools.

None of this would be possible without both inspiration and hard work. The original inspiration for the event came from Ellen Kort, an Appleton writer and teacher who was Wisconsin's first Poet Laureate. Ellen talked for years with interested people before a committee finally gelled and organized the first book festival. It's now an annual event including committees to do fund-raising, coordinate dozens of volunteers, make author arrangements, organize the community read and market the event. None of this would work without a broad cross-section the whole Fox Cities community, and it's no wonder that our libraries are deeply involved.

As Kim Edwards advised budding authors: "Read, read and read, and write, write and write."

Give a Child a Book

Reading to kids is vital. On the Washington Post site last week, there was a terrific column including some big points. Authoritatively:

the single best predictor of how a child will do over 12 years of school is: how much s/he was read to prior to the first day of first grade.

if we want to change America, we need to change how parents read to their children.

This reading requires two-way interaction--lots of talk. So the parents are pushing their children, and all they need to do is read aloud, with joy and talk. Doing this is like treasure and gold for a child’s life and with libraries, does not have to cost either.

Which is why our Friends' Give a Child a Book campaign, now in its 11th year, is important to the future of our community. The library encourages parents to read to kids, encourages kids to read on their own and gives them the means. Putting books directly into the hands of children who would not otherwise get them is a big step, and our Friends group works together with other local libraries to distribute books via the Salvation Army and the Boys & Girls Club.


New books or cash donations may be brought to the library through Dec. 12.

Books: here to stay

To the Best of Our Knowledge on public radio had a recent segment on libraries, books and reading. They featured Jonathon Rundman's Librarian song, and one of my favorite authors, Ursula K. LeGuin, talking about her essay in Harper's magazine, "Staying awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading."

The essay is worth re-reading. We have noticed here at APL that although the use of media is increasing, more books are being used as well. LeGuin notes:

The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell it to you again when you’re fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.

This is crucial, the fact that a book is a thing, physically there, durable, indefinitely reusable, an object of value.

I am far from dismissing the vast usefulness of electronic publication, but my guess is that print-on-demand will become and remain essential. Electrons are as evanescent as thoughts. History begins with the written word. Much of civilization now relies on the durability of the bound book—its capacity for keeping memory in solid, physical form. The continuous existence of books is a great part of our continuity as an intelligent species.

If I were interested in something like, say, building a library, I'd be paying attention.

Cure for the Summertime Blues (part 4)

For adults, it's beach leisure reading -- I'm currently greatly enjoying the latest Stephanie Plum novel, Finger Lickin' Fifteen. For kids, it's more essential. Here's a New York Times piece that's no news to librarians, but it's nice to hear other people singing our song.

A brief excerpt:

OP-ED COLUMNIST: The Best Kids’ Books Ever
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television, and give them a book. For ideas, here’s a summer reading list....

“In educating myself this spring about education, I was aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains.

This is less true of middle-class students whose parents drag them off to summer classes or make them read books. But poor kids fall two months behind in reading level each summer break, and that accounts for much of the difference in learning trajectory between rich and poor students.

A mountain of research points to a central lesson: Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television this summer, and get them reading.”

His list is worth checking out. What's on your list of best kids' books ever?

Library receives family literacy grant

From today's Post Crescent:

$860,000 in grants from J.J. Keller Foundation and U.S. Oil golf event will go to poverty programs

Collaboration between a charity golf event and the J.J. Keller Foundation will mean more than $860,000 for organizations targeting poverty in northeastern Wisconsin...

Appleton Library Foundation: $31,402 for Prime Time Family Reading Program which uses reading out loud, storytelling, and reading strategies to promote higher-order thinking and help the children from low- income families better succeed in school. This is year one of a two-year grant totaling $36,902.

Our children's librarians have done great work to develop & implement the Prime Time Family Reading Time Program -- originally developed by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. It's gratifying to see this kind of community support and recognition that family literacy is a basic need when it comes to fighting poverty.

It was a real privilege that the Schmidt Oil Foundation, J.J. Keller Foundation, and the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region chose our library to announce these many grants to fight poverty. We're grateful for the grants and proud to be in distinguished company!

Book Festival wraps up

Elizabeth Berg, who was the last program of this year's Fox Cities Book Festival, is finishing up in our program area. She drew a crowd of 183 people and we had to scramble to set up additional chairs. A whole bunch of volunteers and Book Festival Board members quickly materialized to help get the chairs out.

That's just the way the whole thing has been -- all sorts of people, from all over the Fox Cities, pitching in together to promote authors, books and reading. It'll be awhile before all the heads are counted and all the evaluations are read, but I'd say it was a howling success. Our library had almost 1,100 people attending programs over the past four days. Michael Perry, our community read author, drew about 1,500 people speaking at every public library in the Fox Cities, plus the UW-Fox campus and in concert at the Performing Arts Center. Our National Library Week door count was 1,868 people a day coming to our building.

But numbers hardly tell the story. The real news was in all the conversations that sprang up, all the connections that developed, all the people exposed to authors and ideas they didn't know before. You get a lot of laughs hearing Sherman Alexie describe his appearance on the Colbert Report, or watching Nikola-Lisa wearing shades, playing the blues harp and doing a rap version of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" -- and then you can talk to people about it.

It took a lot of work, a lot of donations and a lot of hours of volunteer time by a lot of people. Every public library, and a lot of the school and university libraries, in the Fox Cities has been involved, along with many other community-minded folks who work for the joys of books, readers and writers. I'm betting we'll do it again!

photo: Michael Perry @ APL. Photo by Michael Kenney

Post Crescent coverage of Prime Time

Reporter Cheryl Anderson from the Post-Crescent did a nice article:

Cheryl Anderson: It's Prime Time again for library's literacy program
February 10, 2009

Each Wednesday evening, 31 children and parents gather at the Appleton Public Library to share a nutritious meal and then a story at the multilingual, multigenerational Prime Time Family Reading Time. ...

I posted a story about this program last month, and I continue to be proud of our children's staff and thankful for the grants and volunteers that make this program possible. We've seen some of the families participating in the Summer Library Program, so we have reason to think the program is effective. I'm hopeful we'll find the resources to make it a regular service.

Community Read: Michael Perry

We've kicked off this year's community read, with Wisconsin writer Michael Perry and we got a nice article in the Post Crescent:

Fox Cities Reads program hopes Michael Perry gets Valley laughing
Humorist's books chosen for community read

By Cheryl Anderson • Post-Crescent staff writer • January 23, 2009

APPLETON — Three of best-selling Wisconsin author and humorist Michael Perry's works will be featured in the 2009 Fox Cities Reads.

The public libraries of Appleton, Neenah, Menasha, Kaukauna, Kimberly and Little Chute and the library of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley kicked off the third annual community read Thursday at the Copper Leaf Hotel. [entire article here]

We're pretty excited, and had not only the newspaper, but three television stations and three radio stations give us coverage. Rev. Will Bloedow, APL Board member -- and with his wife Ruth, co-chair of the Fox Cities Book Festival -- said:

Every library in the Fox Cities is here today, along with two mayors and a village administrator. This shows a sense of community which our leaders tells us we need badly to rebuild our nation and our world. It's an example of working together to build community and efficiency through collaboration.

Websites to check:

• Fox Cities Reads
• Michael Perry
• Fox Cities Book Festival
  

Strengthening families with Prime Time Reading

Early on Wednesday evening, 31 children and parents gather in the meeting room of the Appleton Public Library. About half are Hmong and a third Hispanic. They've come to share a meal, spend family time together and to help their children become better readers. Volunteers (shown at right), library staff, a storyteller and a scholar are there to help. It's Prime Time Family Reading Time.

Prime Time is a program originated by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. We've done it here in Appleton before, and our Children's staff has done great work to create multilingual opportunities for non-English speaking parents. Working with the schools and other agencies, we're able to identify and offer the program to families where the children need help with their reading. The program promotes family literacy and parents reading to children, turning families into library users.

Paraphrasing the LEH website: this is a six week program of reading, discussion, and storytelling for children age 6-10 their parents, and younger siblings. The APL program is adapted for families speaking Spanish & English as well as Hmong & English. Several participants have told staff they appreciate the opportunity to practice and sharpen their English language skills in this supportive atmosphere.

In each session, a storyteller demonstrates effective reading-aloud techniques, and a scholar leads discussions. Discussions center on humanities themes, such as fairness, greed and dreams, using award-winning and culturally diverse children’s books. Staff promotes library use by introducing resources: books on parenting and health care, homework help, ESL and GED materials for parents, newspapers and magazines.

LEH notes:

PRIME TIME transforms families into lifelong readers. It creates the precondition for all learning and helps to end the cycle of inter-generational illiteracy.

The APL program is funded by generous grants from the J. J. Keller Foundation and the Doug and Carla Salmon Foundation, and supported by the hard work of numerous volunteers who help welcome families and serve meals.

"Connecting writers and readers" -- Book Festival to return

The book festival is coming back. Today's Post Crescent has the story:

Second Fox Cities Book Festival set for six-day run in April 2009
The sequel to Fox Cities Book Festival 2008 is due out this spring. [read full story]

The will be many needs and opportunities to donate or volunteer time. Our library is proud to participate, with other libraries, schools, organizations and individuals. Featured authors next year will include:

• Samantha Chang
• Sherman Alexie
• Michael Perry
• Sandra Kring
• David Giffels
• A. Manette Ansay
• Elizabeth Berg
• Philip Gulley
• Simon Armitage
• ...more to come...

Watch the Book Festival website for more information.

Summer reading packs educational value

by Elizabeth Burmaster, State Superintendent of Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction

Summer reading is fun, but there's a special value that extends into the school year. Students who read four to six books during the summer return to school ready to learn.

Research has shown what teachers have known forever: students who do not engage in educational activities during summer vacation suffer learning loss. That loss can amount to as much as two to three months of learning each year. The greatest learning losses are procedural and factual information, meaning children who don't read in the summer tend to start the school year fuzzy on math and spelling. Summer readers, however, return to school in fall more enthusiastic about reading and learning. Many gain a month of learning by staying engaged and involved during the summer break from school.

It really doesn't matter what kinds of materials children read during vacation; in fact, it's better for youth to pick what they like. Joke books, magazines, mysteries, or sports stories-whatever suits their fancy is best for recreational reading. There are no tests or reports. This reading is at a comfortable level to keep it fun. Still, recreational reading develops vocabulary and builds reading speed and comprehension skills.

Wisconsin's public libraries are great for children to select reading material, and the price is right: free. Adding adventure to the reading fun, each year Wisconsin joins 46 member states in the Collaborative Summer Library program, which provides high-quality summer reading materials based on a topic. This year's theme for preschool and elementary students is "Catch the Reading Bug!" Programming for teens centers around "Metamorphosis@Your Library."

Children and teens who register for the Summer Library Program receive a reading record to tally the number of pages, minutes, or books they've read. Many libraries offer literacy games and activities and provide incentives to support reading efforts. This year, in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, children who meet their reading goals earn a day pass good for one free car admission to any one of 58 state parks, forests, or recreational areas in the state. There is so much to gain by reading during the summer. I encourage all families to visit the library and "Catch the Reading Bug!"

Julie Andrews: When You Read

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, decrying possible library budget cuts, movie star and author Julie Andrews speaks powerfully on the value of books, reading and libraries:

I have witnessed firsthand the crucial role our libraries play in providing free access for children and adults alike in the realms of learning and literacy. Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and homogenized education, a library offers individual and personalized learning opportunities second to none.

Perhaps most important, libraries offer a powerful antidote to the isolation of the Internet, providing connection, support and community. Rather than wading in a solitary fashion through the morass of potential misinformation available on the Net, the student who conducts his or her explorations at a library has safe, professional guidance in his or her search for good books and accurate information.

This is another perspective on where we, as a society, find value. We can demonstrate a good return on investment. But the value of libraries doesn't end there.

Book Festival: "Books may well be the only true magic"

Whew. The Fox Cities Book Festival, many years in the dreaming and three years in the actual planning, is over. By all accounts, it was a tremendous success. Over 3,000 people attended programs over the three days of the festival proper. That doesn't include lots of auxiliary events, like author presentations in the schools, community read book discussion groups, etc. Our library hosted ten events with attendance of over 600.

People came from over 100 miles away to attend, and some community members were heard to say "Next year, I'll take vacation so I can go to more events."

I'm proud of our collaboration with other libraries, organizations and community volunteers. I'm very proud of the role our library played and all the hard work done by library staff, especially on Saturday, when we hosted eight programs in five hours, with attendance over 300. I'm proud of all the work our staff did to get ready for that day, coming hard on the heels of our very big Alice Hoffman presentation. Thank you, thank you, to attendees, library staff, library volunteers, and the Foundation donors who underwrote our participation.

Not only that, but dang -- it was fun! I managed to catch at least some of several programs. I enjoyed the authors, and enjoyed the community excitement about the value and power of books even more. Alice Hoffman & Naomi Shihab Nye absolutely rock, Chalres Baxter, Ellen Kort, Cynthia Johnson, Minnesota Crime Wave -- you folks were all great!

Now begins the debriefing and post-mortem, as we try to figure out if we can replicate this effort in a year! Here's a copy of letter I received in email:

To the editor:

The people of the Fox Cities celebrated the Fox Cities Book Festival last week from April 16-20, with a spirit of enthusiasm and energy and joy.

It was a great coming together of the many who love and value reading with those who write the books we read. We are most grateful to everyone who helped to make it happen: the committee, the libraries, supporters and donors, volunteers and the authors who came to read and talk to their readers.

It was great fun to hear why authors write as they do, to learn how they choose their subjects, what they want their books to do, and opportunity, for readers to ask questions of the authors, hear them read their own words, and meet authors not yet read, but now, will.

Thank you to those who gave the event publicity, those who sponsored the event with funding, those who gave ideas and suggestions, those who worked so hard and beautifully on the brochures, posters, website, the Post-Crescent and other media.

For those who gave in-kind, such as the books for the children, printing, advertising, time on tv and radio, food, venue space, we say thank you, as well. We ask everyone to go to the website or to your brochure to see the many sponsors and to thank them when you see them.

We especially thank the over 3000 people, from the littlest children to students and adult readers, who came to hear one or more of the 40 poets and writers present throughout the Fox Cities during the week. What a thrill to have so many value the Pure Joy of Reading, the event's theme.

Thank you, Fox Cities, from the Fox Cities Book Festival committee.

Ellen Kort
Leota Ester
co-chairs

Children's reading can have deep impact

from the Post-Crescent APPLETON — Best-selling author Alice Hoffman observed that she often writes about writers and readers in her books, perhaps because writing and reading are what have sustained her through tough, trying times.

Photos: Author Alice Hoffman at Appleton Public Library

One of the short stories that makes up Hoffman's "Blackbird House," one of two official selections of Fox Cities Reads 2008, describes Violet, a young girl living in a Cape Cod farmhouse who loves to read so much that she sneaks out when her family is sleeping and reads by lantern light in the horses' stalls.

In Hoffman's young adult novel "Green Angel," the other Fox Cities Reads selection, a teenager, nicknamed "Green" because of her penchant for helping things to grow, shuts down after a family tragedy and only opens up again after she's able to tell her story on paper.

"I do think that what you read as a child influences not only the reader you become, but the person you become," Hoffman said to her audience Thursday in a packed lower-level meeting room of the Appleton Public Library after reading aloud from her books. "I write very often about ghosts. Not ghosts like 'Boo, Casper,' but how the history and the past come to stay with you in a way."

Fox Cities Reads, the second effort to get residents reading and discussing the same book, is a collaborative effort among the Appleton, Kaukauna, Kimberly-Little Chute, Menasha, Neenah and University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley libraries. Hoffman's talks in Appleton, Kaukauna and Neenah also are part of the first Fox Cities Book Festival, which began Wednesday and ends Sunday.

Many people who came to hear Hoffman carried copies of her books. Some wore Fox Cities Reads 2008 T-shirts or buttons.

Hoffman's visit is the culminating event of the three-month community read, which drew adults and teens into book discussion groups at various public places.

Pat Milheiser of Appleton, a media specialist at Madison Middle School, said many of her students have been reading "Green Angel."

"One of the things my reluctant readers like about 'Green Angel' is that it is short but powerful," Milheiser said. "It's good just to get kids talking about sad topics. Communication is really so important and so vital, and sharing with people is a really healing thing."

Tammie DeVooght Blaney, who works in Green Bay area schools and was able to finish the first story in "Blackbird House" before Hoffman's talk, said Hoffman's appeal lies in her ability to mesmerize readers of all ages.

"I'm in my 30s, I'm reading her, and my daughter is 10, and she's reading her," DeVooght Blaney said. "My students are between 14 and 18, and they're reading her, and I have a college student working with me, she's 23. And we're all really intrigued by the writing."

Kara Patterson: 920-993-1000, ext. 215, or kpatterson@postcrescent.com

Fox Cities Book Festival & Community Read: Author, author!

"Books are dangerous in the best way"

Alice Hoffman
APL staff with Alice Hoffman

The first ever Fox Cities Book Festival is in full swing, and we've reached the culmination of our community read with the appearance of Alice Hoffman at our library. Alice is hitting three libraries in 22 hours, and earning every penny of her speaker's fee.

This evening we held a reception here for some of the book festival folks, particularly for Alice's visit. Many of the reception attendees were part of the over 200 people in the audience for Alice, others went across town to hear poet Billy Collins, planning on catching Alice tomorrow at the Neenah Public Library. From the many and profuse "thank you" comments our staff got at the end of the evening, I know people here really enjoyed Alice Hoffman, and I'm sure the other venue got a good crowd for Billy Collins. This is what you call your embarrassment of riches.

It's been an exhausting but wonderful ride doing the community read and the book festival. The festival runs two more days, with many things happening at our library and elsewhere on Saturday, but thus far it's a big success. In an interactive information world, I'm glad that we're devoting so much energy to books.

Alice Hoffman, who proved a personable presenter and excellent speaker, touched on this. Though she writes three blogs herself, she wonders if people, especially young people, are spending so much time online that they're spending less time reading. Speaking for myself, books are a slow pleasure -- and work best when you can set time aside for reading. You can't multitask your way through a good read. So this has been a good activity for National Library Week.

Ellen Kort, former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin and Book Festival organizer,
with YA novelist Alex Flinn

When a genius is an idiot

As reported in the New York Times, Apple guru Steve Jobs, asked about the Amazon Kindle at Macworld Expo, replied:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.

Now, this is just silly, but at least it explains why it's so difficult to put books into my iPod. But another article in the Times reports:

Last year, a survey for the Associated Press found that a much smaller number — 27 percent — had not read a book lately, which means nearly three-in-four have read a book. Steve Jobs may be many things – maestro, visionary, demi-god – but he apparently isn’t a careful reader of certain market reports.

The more compelling statistic was rarely mentioned in news accounts of the A.P. story: the survey found that another 27 percent of Americans had read 15 or more books a year. That report documents a national celebration.

Most companies would kill for a market like that – more than one-fourth of the world’s biggest consumer market buying 15 or more of its items a year. And half the population bought nearly 6 books a year. If only Apple were so lucky.

Our library staff certainly knows people are still reading. We checked out:

• 647,000 books in 2005
• 705,000 books in 2006
• 750,000 books in 2007

"...people don’t read anymore"? Hardly! Thanks to Tasha Saecker for pointing out these stories!

Cybils

This week the Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards announced their 2007 finalists. As an open process for awards, it provides a good cross-section of titles. Just going through the list has made me check a bunch of things in our catalog and add to my hold queue.

Kudos to all the organizers and judges -- just reviewing the list of contributors and following some of their blog links is an education in itself.

About the Cybils:

...The Newbery Awards seemed too elitist and the Quills, well, not enough so. Was there a middle ground, an annual award that would recognize both a book's merits and popularity?

The Cybils found that middle ground. The public nominates their favorite children's books from 2007 in seven categories: Picture Books; Non-fiction Picture Books; Middle Grade fiction; Poetry; Young Adult fiction; Non-fiction (YA/MG); and Graphic Novels. Nominations open on October 1.

When we say "the public," we mean it. Anyone with an e-mail address may nominate one book per category. Then groups of bloggers get to work. First, a nominating committee reads ALL the titles in a given category. After nearly two arduous months, this committee winnows the nominees to five finalists. A second committee of bloggers considers the shortlist and, after much debate, chooses the best of the best for 2007.

Because The Cybils is a blogger-run, blogger-inspired awards process, we operate with the expectation of openness and transparency.

You should read this

Last week, Doris lessing was awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech, she had a number of observations that librarians and library users should consider.

We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers. ...

Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education, and owe respect to our great store of literature. Of course we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning, but it is on record that working men and women longed for books, and this is evidenced by the working men's libraries, institutes, colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Reading, books, used to be part of a general education.

Older people, talking to young ones, must understand just how much of an education it was, reading, because the young ones know so much less. And if children cannot read, it is because they have not read. ...

Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books.

There is the gap. There is the difficulty. ...

In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, the Tradition. ...

We are a jaded lot, we in our world – our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency.

We have a treasure-house – a treasure – of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. It is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come on it. A treasure. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.

We own a legacy of languages, poems, histories, and it is not one that will ever be exhausted. It is there, always.

We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.

Lessing speaks movingly about the way books and education are cherished by those people in want of them, but taken for granted and increasingly abandoned in developed Western society. She seems to blame the Internet & TV, but her bottom line is the need to cherish books and learning. That's hard to argue with.