The hottest place to hang out...

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Frederick Douglass
 
When the library was first created, it was a silent place on the property, not because libraries are quiet places but because it was generally unoccupied. A culture of reading did not exist. For six years, the English speakers of the co-operative read aloud to the children in an attempt to entice an interest in books.

Today, the library is the hottest place to be. You will always find a child engrossed in a book, transported into another world. “It’s the first place children run to after school, even before they have their lunch," Theresa reports.
 
It’s a miraculous process when a shy little girl wanders in and asks to check out a book, and then comes back for another one. "When a child asks to read a book herself, rather than being read to, is a moment of pure joy," says Anne the librarian. "It means my student has turned a corner!" Wanting to read, to spend time in the library with books, to enter universes of possibility through comprehension of words is a miracle we are delighting in this year.
 
The seeds of literacy are taking root and a forest of shoots is flourishing in the quiet silence of a library.