Give that Belle a library. Belle's love libraries.

I love libraries. I always have. I was brought up to regard books with the highest respect and to think that there was a place that would trust me enough to borrow their books... well, it's almost too good to be true. I will almost always lend my books to another person. Almost. I never lend out my Harry Potter books. Never. Ever. So don't ask. When I divorced from my first husband, he took the cat and I kept the Harry Potter books. Any other book in my collection is fair game and you are welcome to them. Just make sure you give them back... I don't want to have to hunt you down like a dog to get them back. Because I will.

When I was a child, some of my earliest memories are of crawling up in my mom's bed and letting her read me a little bit out of our book of the moment. We read Black Beauty and The Little Princess. By the time I entered kindergarten, I already knew how to read and in first grade I set the bar so high in reading that we no longer could play Around The World, as I would always win the reading. My appetite for books became insatiable as I've gown up and I always have at least two to three books which I am reading at any given time (right now I am in the middle of clash of kings from game of thrones and Mists of Avalon -- which I read about once a year)

Today's visit to the library yielded five knitting books (honestly, one can never have too many) and three graphic novels based on the sci-fy cult hit, Firefly. My local library is nice. Small but nice. They even have an app for my iPad that allows me to download audiobooks and PDF files of books which I want/need to read. The grandest library I have been to, outside of Europe, was in Sarasota, FL. It was two stories tall with a HUGE aquarium archway the lead into the children's section. I would sit and watch the fish for hours.

But regardless of the size of the library, I always get a sense of anticipation when I walk through the doors. What treasures will I discover with this visit? The smell of old books rolls over me and I feel like the books are welcoming me back. "You've been gone for far too long", they seem to whisper to me in a riffle of pages. "What adventures shall we have today?" In one of my favorite books, Inkheart, one of the characters explains why books are so thick. She says that each time you open a book, you are transported to the time and place where you first read the book. The covers not only hold words and pages, but they hold memories too. And it's true. I can tell you my personal history via a tour of my library. And I openly admit that I celebrate my favorite character's victories and mourn their deaths (JK Rowling, I'm looking at you). And when I finish a novel, I am left bereft, as if I have newly returned from a long voyage and can't quite find my sense of direction again.

But I guess that is what books do. I can be the hero or the damsel or sometime's both at the same time. I can travel to far off lands and to worlds yet undiscovered. I can fight the dragon or BE the dragon. Everything and anything is possible. All I have to do is open up a book and breathe in the words and let them whisk me away.