Last week, I spent some time exploring the situation our local libraries are in and how we got here. This week, I’d like to continue the discussion by looking at some of the benefits a strong library system brings to our community — in other words, what we risk losing if the millage ultimately fails and the library loses the 38% of its budget those tax dollars represent.

I’ll put a nice long list of amenities the Lafayette Public Library provides towards the end of the post, but I’d like to start with something more personal. 

We’ve been homeschooling for roughly eight years now, and I can say with conviction that our homeschool could not function as it does — almost could not exist — without the public library. 

Last week when I took stock, we had over $1,000 worth of library materials (books and audiobooks) in our home. A good portion of those are “for fun” reading (which some of us call “building fluency”) but a good portion are also dedicated to learning new information. I recently returned a stack of books on Egypt. This year our assigned (library sourced) reading has also included a children’s version of Gilgamesh, Old Yeller, The Cricket in Times Square, books on ancient Mesopotamia and how energy works…the list goes on, and it’s barely November.

The point is, my husband is a school teacher, with a school teacher’s salary. I don’t really get paid to write. There is no way we could give our children the education they currently enjoy without our libraries, and we are grateful. We could be paying hundreds of dollars for the use of these “curriculum materials,” and it would still be a great deal. For the upcoming millage, we pay roughly $11. I couldn’t purchase any one of the books about Egypt for that price.

(There is a greater good here, as well — libraries are key to a strong democracy. Because they give everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, access to information, they lay the groundwork for an educated and involved public. This isn’t my idea — it was Ben Franklin’s. But to get back to our story…)

When we first moved to Acadiana, we lived in the wild Cajun prairie between Grand Coteau and Arnaudville. We soon learned that, despite our St. Landry Parish address, we could get a Lafayette Public Library card. The Sunset Community Library (St. Landry) was closer, but North Regional Library in Carencro was on the way to most of the places we went…and it had story time. Mrs. Anna, the children’s librarian, was pretty much my kids’ first friend in Acadiana. Every week I got four small children out of the trailer and into the magic of books, songs, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and exploring the library. We didn’t have internet at home, so it was also my only computer time, and my only access to a printer. It’s hard to express what the library meant to us that year, but one word might sum it up: connection.

Again, once the library re-opened for drive-thru services after quarantine, it was one of the few options for entertainment at that time. I’d order books online (we did have internet by then, thankfully) and pick them up at the window, along with take-home crafts for the kids. We also, appropriately, borrowed the board game “Pandemic.” The librarians provided online story times and events to help parents cope and our community stay connected.

Which brings me to the promised long list of library services we risk losing if we don’t care for our libraries. There are the obvious things that can be checked out: books, music, movies, video games, board games, air quality monitors, musical instruments. Plus all the digital resources — magazines, books, newspapers, genealogy information, and research databases. And if our library doesn’t have a book, they will go out of their way to get it. Need an obscure book on life in Roman-occupied Israel? That’s what interlibrary loan is for.

There are the spaces open to all: meeting and study rooms available for reservation, a quiet place in a world that is noisy, a warm place in winter and a cool place in summer, a place where one is allowed to loiter in a world where people are often only welcome if they plan to spend money. Our churches are usually locked these days, but the library still provides a seat and a little rest for those with no where else to go.

There are the services: tax and legal and resume assistance programs, nutrition and exercise programs (some day I will make it to the Zumba class), literacy programs for children and adults, craft time and story time and speakers on all sorts of topics. My oldest two girls and I heard Ernest Gaines speak at our library a couple of years ago. When Lucy read A Lesson Before Dying in English this fall, she already had a connection to the author. That is priceless.

There is the equipment: access to computers, internet, and printers. In the Maker Spaces patrons can use sewing machines, sergers, 3-D printers, dye-cut machines, typewriters, and more.

And there is the community a library creates. Moms meet at story time and then schedule their own play dates. People meet at craft events and become friends; people meet at book clubs and learn from each other. 

If all this isn’t enough, libraries also mean good jobs and higher property values. Even if you never set foot in the library, you still benefit.

Some people in our community argue that these resources aren’t worth our tax dollars. I disagree. I think we should be hesitant to undervalue community, literacy, and an educated populace. As Catholics, we believe we have an obligation to develop the whole person towards holiness; our public libraries (rightly used, of course, but that is another very long post!) make the space and the resources available for people to do just that. If our goal is human flourishing, libraries are a step in the right direction.

All that said, the discussion circles around and ends where it began for me. For our family, the library, more than anything else, means books. Books mean stories. Stories are where we meet people like us, people unlike us, and ourselves. I believe in stories because I believe in the Word, and I believe one place in which we can encounter Him is in stories. So join me at the polls this coming Saturday, November 13, please, and support our community’s access to these stories.

“The whole purpose of reading – the whole purpose of everything – is for our kids to love God and love each other better.”

~Sarah Mackenzie

(If you’re not familiar with Sarah Mackenzie and the Read Aloud Revival, check it out!)

Lucy and her friend were practicing multiplication tables this morning (not my idea – I love having extra kids around sometimes!) and they decided it would be fun to make it into a Go Fish! game.  So they did.  And spent half an hour or so playing 6 Times Table Go Fish.

Just caught Clare explaining to another friend about how difficult it was for Michelangelo to carve David (“and if he made a tiny mistake, just this big, the whole thing would be ruined!”) and retelling the story of The Library Mouse.  Narration?  Done.

And as I type, Isaac is trying to put an apple slice in my pocket.  Earlier he was working on building train tracks.

In other news, I should be putting my first children’s book manuscript in the mail in the next couple of days.  Pray hard!  Asking St. Therese of Lisieux for special help, since it is about her, after all.  (And if you want a preview, let me know and I’ll send the text along.)

🙂 You should read The Courage of Sarah Noble.  You should read it because it is about a little girl named Sarah Noble and she goes into the woods with her father to build a house near Indians.  She had to leave the rest of her family behind because there wasn’t enough room to bring everybody.  The Indians turned out to be nice.  So when her father left to bring the rest of their family home, Sarah stayed with the Indians.  Their closest friend was Tall John so she stayed at Tall John’s house.  The Indians of the North were the other Indians’ enemies.  The most interesting part was that the Indians at the North passed by the Indians at night and did not disturb the Indians.  Sarah Noble taught the Indian children many things, and they taught her new Indian games.
the end
Love,
Lucy
PS
this is one of the best books ever! 🙂

This book is about three little children.  There names were Amanda, Jemmy, and Meg.  They sailed on a ship to go to America and to find their father in Jamestown.  Their father had a door knocker that people thought was made of gold.  Dr. Crider is a doctor that helped them get to the boats and he fell overboard on the ship.  Their ship got shipwrecked at an island and they  built a tiny village.  They built two ships and sailed to Jamestown.  They found their father at Jamestown.  My favorite part was them getting to find their father. 
Love, Lucy.
P.S.
This book was the best book in my life!

I liked

Trumpet of the Swan.  You should read it.  It is about a swan who doesn’t have a voice, but gets a trumpet and learns how to play it.

The swan’s name is Louis.

Louis’ dad robbed a music store to get a trumpet.

It is also about a little boy named Sam.  Sam saves Louis’ mother from a fox by hitting him on the nose with a stick.  Louis works so he can pay back the trumpet that his father stole.  It was very exciting.  My most favorite part was when Louis got a trumpet, because he did not have a voice.  The book has pictures in black and white.

I just have to say, I am so glad we are homeschooling.  Lucy informed me last week that the picture books I had been getting from the library were “getting boring”, so I thought, “fair enough- we’ll move up to the 3rd-5th grade reading list.  I started her with Charlotte’s Web.  She is reading it herself (and she doesn’t know every word, but has no trouble at all discussing the story with me) so I am reading it myself, too.  And I had forgotten, if I ever really appreciated, what a wonderful book it is.  Which I most likely would have missed out on if she were in school, and it wasn’t my job to pay attention to what she was reading and what she is getting out of it.
In other news, Lucy is about to loose her third tooth in less than a month, and all three girls are loving their ballet classes.  Lucy is very excited about her first communion this spring, and has taken possession of my old Precious Moments Bible (from my first communion) earlier than I had planned, because she wants to read it, too.
And tonight we make pumpkin pie.  It’s a good life.

So it took us a full week to get the last week’s post functional. But there it is. (And then it took almost a full week to get this one functional…we’re actually almost done with C now…but more on that later.)  So these are would have been kind of back-to-back, but hopefully the kinks are worked out and things will be smoother from now on.
This week we focused on the letter B, with Saints Bernadette and Bernard, and the bugle flower fairy, and lots of bees and birds, and a few bears and blueberries.
We made letter B’s out of modeling wax, which Lucy promptly turned into a butterfly, a la Fancy Nancy.

Lucy’s Amazing Butterfly

(Sadly, butterflies did not get the attention they deserved this week – keeping them in mind for the next trip down the path.) Lucy has mastered half-whole relations (1st grade math GLE-6 for those of you following along). We also went through the bird guide to discuss how different birds have differently adapted bodies, and how they use them. Not full-on natural selection so much as the beauty of variety and the complexity of creation. More important than natural selection, in my opinion, now that I think about it.

Fr. Thomas reading to the girls (in a british accent)

Fr. Thomas Schafgin joined us for tea and dinner on Friday. Well, dinner, then tea, since we forgot to warn him about the New Orleans-to-Baton Rouge Friday traffic. We had blueberry tea and blueberry scones with a lemon glaze for tea time/dessert. Lucy is really learning her way around the kitchen. Mixing the dough was followed by all three girls getting a turn to experiment with the measuring cups and a bowl of water. Those were happy children.  They were also happy being read to by Fr. Thomas…

Lucy & Clare with Butterfiies

Clare’s Clay

Here are this week’s books, in no particular order:

Comet’s Nine Lives
The Mitten
The Umbrella
Honey, Honey, Lion!
Town Mouse, Country Mouse
By Jan Brett
Jan Brett’s art is gorgeous. The girls like the stories, too.

Wild Birds by Joanne Ryder
I like it. Beautiful pictures of all kinds of (mostly) song birds. I think my mom would like this one. 🙂

Saint Francis Preaches to the Birds by Peter Schumann
Simple story with simple, striking illustrations. Not convinced St. Francis drank coffee, though. Haven’t investigated that yet.

Brigid’s Cloak by Bryce Milligan
I didn’t know this story before. Really, really beautiful.

The Bird House by Cynthia Rylant
A sweet story about an orphan girl finding a home. And, of course, birds.

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Classic. Beautiful. I like it because it points out how even a child can put aside discomfort, when necessary, for something important.

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
Cute baby-mommy story.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
One of Clare’s favorites. She asks me to tell her this one after the lights are out at bed time. And I do, because it’s well-written, and a really fun story.

The Life of the Honeybee by Heiderose and Andreas Fischer-Nagel
Informative bee book.

Busy Buzzy Bee by Karen Wallace
Easy-reader about bees.

So. And today (Saturday, 8/17, when I started this post!), Lucy went to a tennis open house at city park, which she wants to do every week from now on. And she and Craig took apart the broken CD player to see how it works. And she made the meatballs for the spaghetti, which is on the stove right now. So…art lessons resume next week. And I did a basket switch, because the basket for the “school” books was only about half big enough. The library ladies are going to be tired of me soon. 🙂

Friday Lucy helped me make strawberry jam – our best batch yet.  She was very excited about making it so we didn’t have to buy it any more.
Saturday the girls helped me weed a bed at Nana and Papa’s and scatter seeds for the polyculture.  That meant lessons on mulch, different kinds of seeds, weeds, manure, and lizards.  We went to Mass and to Mimi’s for a St. Patrick’s day dinner.
Sunday was our day off for the first time in a couple of weeks.  The girls got to go swimming and played outside with the neighbor kids.  Lucy is just like Craig – she wants to invite everyone she meets to dinner immediately.  Lucy also helped clean up some shelves I found on the side of the road and both girls helped cut strawberries for “fruit nachos”.
Today (Monday) we read the first story in House at Pooh Corner and Lucy had ballet.  We tried to Skype with a friend in Seattle, but it didn’t work right.  But we did get a geography lesson on where New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Seattle are.

Homeschooling journal:

Sewing lessons of various sorts.  Alphabet puzzle.  Discussion of St. Jude and the fire on his head in the picture.  Why we don’t fight over books – they tear.  Cats eat mice.