The smell of fresh books, the friendly faces of people who share a love of reading, the new stories waiting to be told, all are reasons I am in love with libraries. Big or small, each holds an entire universe in the books they distribute. The experiences of centuries and wisdom of old men, all are embedded inside.
I learned to read at a very young age, much earlier than most of my peers. Ever since then, I've loved the library. I remember proudly walking through the doors of the local library to get my first library card, checking out the first of many books throughout my childhood. The library was a place of exploration, of learning, and best of all, reading. I loved to leaf through the pages of books that would take me to worlds of friendly big red dogs or mystical lands where the wild things were or the Hundred-Acre Wood in which a vivacious stuffed tiger and a honey-loving bear roamed.
By the time I was even old enough to start school I had a repertoire of at least thirty books committed to memory, and several more on the way. The library became my gateway to a world bigger than the confines of the towns I lived in in the times I lived there. It was in that mecca of book lovers that I first traveled to The Plaza Hotel with the spunky Eloise, then onward to Paris with the Madeline books, finally accelerating forward to mystical lands such as Narnia and Hogwarts. By my sixth grade year, I felt that the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland was as familiar and inviting to me as my own room, in great part thanks to the library.
As I've grown older, the library has still retained its relevance in my life. It’s where I study, where I learn, and where I still take the greatest pleasure in reading. I've spent more of my waking hours in my school’s library this past year than I have doing any other recreational activity. It’s the one place I am guaranteed to focus in, the best place to study, to get work done, and to spend time simply reorienting myself for the day to come.
The library is one of the best places on earth. That’s why I intend to share my love of them when I enter the workforce. I plan on becoming a librarian, to perpetuate the tradition of paperbacks and hardcovers alike, and to spread the love of reading to younger generations. They don’t know it yet, but they will love the library almost as much as I do. For now though, I'll keep reading on.