Every child needs a safe place to fall - a place where he or she can explore things without worrying about failure and judgment. A library is one of those places. In a library you can learn by following your own nose, which is very different from someone telling you what you should learn. Once a kid learns a library is hers, to use as she wants, the world opens up., I've seen it happen. It happened to me.
Stories are at the very heart of being human; they talk about where we're from, where we are, and where we're going. They're like bread; you need to hear and tell them everyday.
We understand ourselves through stories, by making stories out of our lives. Storytellers give people structure with which they can begin to look at their own lives and try to make sense of them.
In the library I discovered that you could learn by following your nose. And I learned that a book was as close to a living thing as you could get without being one.
