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Friday, April 20, 2012

Trustee

As of last evening, I'm officially a trustee on the Duvall Friends of the Library board. The word "trustee" always makes me think of Cool Hand Luke.  If your library books are overdue, I think it means that I get to come to your house and set the hounds on you...or perhaps I just have to attend one meeting a month and vote on stuff...I've already volunteered to help with the used book sale (that's almost a conflict of interest!)
I love libraries! 
Our little town only had a shelf of books in the corner of the general store and one in the grade school that were serviced by the Bookmobile.  I would try my best to collect gold stars in class so that I'd be allowed inside that marvelous traveling library to choose books for our shelf.  I think my classmates got tired of Billy and Blaze. 
The only up side to leaving the farm in mid 3rd grade was that my new school had an entire library, as did my new town.
The head librarian tried to run me out of the adult section, but I insisted that I could read well enough to handle the books I wanted to check out. She very wisely made me prove it.  
I grabbed a paperback Louis L'Amour off the shelf and started to read aloud to her from Down the Long Hills. Then she made me tell her in my own words why the little boy on the big red stallion was responsible for taking care of the even smaller girl until his dad could find them after the wagon train was attacked.
The librarian studied me for a moment, then gave me permission to check out whatever I wanted to read!  That's still one of the happiest memories of my childhood, and I still love that western story. 
I'm delighted that I might have a chance to make sure that other little kids have an equal opportunity to read books.

My Favorite Fiction Authors and Books

  • Suzanne Arruda- the Jade del Cameron mysteries: "The Mark of the Lion" "Stalking Ivory", "The Serpent's Daughter", "The Leopard's Prey" and "The Golden Cheetah"
  • Ken Goddard - "Balefire" and others
  • Stephen White - the Dr. Alan Gregory books are all great. "Kill Me" is my favorite.
  • Harlan Coben - anything he writes is great
  • Elizabeth Peters - Amelia Peabody mysteries

My Favorite Nonfiction Authors and Books

  • "Coyote's Guide to Connecting With Nature" by Jon Young, Ellen Haas and Evan McGown- 2nd edition coming soon!
  • Gavin De Becker - "The Gift of Fear"
  • "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales- the best survival book I've ever read! Not a how-to, its more of a who does,and why.
  • Candice Millard - "The River of Doubt -Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey"
  • Anything that starts with "Peterson's Field Guide To..."
  • Tom Brown, Jr. - "The Tracker" and others
  • Mark Elbroch - "Mammal Tracks and Sign" and "Animal Skulls"