Where do all the bookish kids go if their school doesn’t have a library?

When I was a child, I was a bit of a misfit at school. I preferred reading books to playing sport so when I found my lack of ability at games had left me on the sidelines, I often retreated to the library. The librarian at my primary school got to know me and what I liked. I spent many contented hours reading the wonderful novels she recommended while my friends ran about in the playground.

Due to our woeful underfunding of public schools, many no longer have a dedicated library or librarian. Credit: ISTOCK

I don’t regret a minute of it, and I remember the librarian at Chatswood Public School, Mrs Fienberg, with great affection. Her influence must have been powerful because one of her daughters is now a novelist and so am I. Maybe there are more of her students who have written books, thanks to her enthusiasm for fiction, I don’t know, but I am very grateful for her encouragement.

That’s one of the reasons I am devastated that, due to our woeful underfunding of public schools, many no longer have a dedicated library or librarian. What, I sometimes wonder, are bookish kids like me doing now at lunchtime? I am grateful that my grandson’s public school still has both, because he also likes to retreat to the quiet world of imagination sometimes, away from the hurly-burly of the playground.

My parents were also great readers, so our Saturday family outings were more often to the local municipal library than the local sporting field. My siblings and I contentedly spent hours browsing the shelves and were allowed to borrow whatever we liked. That was fun, but even better was getting home and cracking open the first book. That was an adventure.

Despite my wonderful childhood experiences in libraries, I am ashamed to say that I allowed my library card to lapse decades ago, when I was the working mother of two small children. I simply became overwhelmed by the pressure to borrow and return books. Especially returning them. It became another chore to add to my never-ending list. I bought books instead. At least I knew I’d never have to return them.

Or so I thought. When my husband and I downsized recently, we gave almost 40 boxes of books to charity. There is no escaping chores, it seems, even if you put them off for decades. It’s also why, as I packed endless boxes and lugged them to the car, I made a promise to myself that the first thing I would do when we moved was join the local library.

Despite my wonderful childhood experiences in libraries, I am ashamed to say that I allowed my library card to lapse decades ago.

JANE CARO

I had forgotten the joy of browsing library shelves, waiting for something to catch my eye. In a bookshop, what you see are the latest releases, apart from a few classics and perennial bestsellers. In a library, you can find those, but also books that go back through the decades. Things you wanted to read but never got around to before they went off the retail shelves.

The staff have also been brilliant and the atmosphere – in my local library at least – is calm, relaxed and friendly. Maybe I am biased, but book lovers are generally not thought of as rowdy or demanding, though library staff might disagree with me.

Despite the calm and the quiet, libraries are also dangerous and subversive places. They exist to pass on not just pleasure and information but new ways of thinking and viewing the world. Books, especially novels, ask the reader to people-travel, to take on the skin of another person and imagine the world through their eyes. By doing so, books and stories create empathy for the “other” – those who are different, unusual and outside what we regard as the norm.

When men ask me how they can be a good feminist ally I always suggest they read books written by and about women, and watch films, plays and TV series that do the same. Identifying with a protagonist who is not like you is the best way to learn to empathise with others.

Perhaps that’s why authoritarian politicians are so keen to attack libraries. They instinctively recognise that they are the repositories of the misfits, adventurers, risk-takers, critical thinkers and daydreamers who change the world. Authoritarians of all flavours want to control not just what we think, but what we do. Libraries want you to break the bonds of everyday life and think widely and differently, to question authority and empathise with those who do not conform.

Banning books is an attempt to ban thought. Banning an event such as Drag Story Time is an attempt to prevent any celebration of exuberant, confident non-conformity. By refusing to do either, libraries are the guardians of our liberty, our right to retreat, to read, to imagine and to think for ourselves. In the age-old battle between authors wielding questions and authoritarians wielding answers, I am on the side of the authors.

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