You know it’s easy to lose a book in a house full of books even when you are a librarian! My friend Tina and I have often joked how we are terrible examples of library book care as we’ve both had to pay not only overdue fines but for lost books as well.
Today I opened up several boxes from Scholastic that I ordered using our book fair $$. Inside one of the boxes was a copy of The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson and I cringed a little. My school library had a copy of this book when I started the year off-mind you this IS my very 1st year here-and I was reading it at school as my “I’m reading” example book (loosely translated to the book I read a page or two out of to demonstrate to students what a good reader looks like as they read near me; trust me it works). I’d gotten to the half way point in the book and was pretty engaged so that Friday I stuck it in my backpack and carted it home with high hopes to finish it that weekend.
Saturday (way back in November) I toted The False Prince with me in my little “31” bag as I went off to work our church Christmas bazaar, where I am in charge of the used book sale. When we finished setting up I set it on the counter because I thought for sure during a lull that I would be able to read a chapter or at the very least a few pages paragraphs. That lull never came and at the end of the bazaar after Teri and I counted the money and closed up shop I went to pick up my book (more accurately my library’s book) and lo and behold all heck broke loose because it was GONE! Now I must be completely honest here and admit that the table I had set this book on was also the table where we exhanged money for books and bagged sold books up for happy buyers. Really, really a poor choice on my part.
So when I pulled this new copy of The False Prince out of the Scholastic box I felt sad that I’d lost the first copy. This is why when students come to us with the crazy excuses they have for losing a book I have to look at them with total empathy. I’ve walked in their shoes.
Somewhere out there is a copy of The False Prince sitting in the bottom of someone’s Target bag of books, waiting to be found. Maybe someday it will be returned to our church or to our school as it is stamped inside. Maybe it will even be returned with my book mark sticking out. Who knows? More than likely the book buyer will just shrug their shoulders and think “I don’t remember buying this one but it looks good!” and they’ll proceed to move the book mark back to the beginning.
Maybe every year I could lose a book to remind myself to stay humble and remember how tough it is for most kids to come in and admit that their new puppy chewed their chapter book to cardboard bits.
And I still need to finish the rest of Jennifer Nielson’s excellent book.
Peaceful Reader 