All Essay Contest Text Submissions

by Kirsti Meyer

Every Tuesday around 11 our mornings sound something like this:

“Run into story time. Come on, Dove you don’t have time to pick out a DVD right now. Get going Dovey, or Dana will read the stories without you.”

“Come on Ang. Do you want to help me put the books in the book drop?”

by Jaden Devlin

Did you know that when I was five years old, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, the basketball player, had shoes so big I could curl up inside of one of them? Do you know how I know that? I learned it at my local public library in Garland, Texas, outside of Dallas, part of the Nicholson Memorial Library System, in the town where I grew up.

by Victoria Kim

Vicky: It was culture shock when I first moved to the Little Cove valley from the Washington D.C. area. All my life, my libraries were within walking distance, but now it was 15 miles away, mostly uphill. Then I heard about the Franklin County Library Bookmobile, which some 30 years ago used to stop at the little village a mile away. I called the county library system and offered them a few places where I’d gotten permission to park the big RV.

by Kayla Rollend

The Romeo Libraries are very important places for many people. We have three libraries that I am for sure of. The Middle School library, Kezar Branch, and Graubner Library. The Middle School library is located at the Middle School. Kezar Branch is the smaller library located around Romeo Middle School. Graubner Library the bigger library and is located on Vandyke rd. in Washington Twp.

by Tamra Mathias

Oh, how I love the library - let me count the ways!

My love affair with the library began as a child at the Mesa Public Library in Arizona. I remember going with my mom up to the big counter and getting the coveted yellow card. It was like my own personal yellow brick road.

I soon was able to escape to where the wild things are and to find a wocket in my pocket!

by Chloe Davenport

When you first enter the parking lot, the smell of holly bushes and their prickling fragrance manifests you and is still in your nose after you walk through the double doors of the library. I am a regular in this joint and am greeted with a smile and a nod by the sweet old ladies who manage the front desk.

by Brett Davisson

As I walk down Grand Avenue in Mars, Pennsylvania, the sun is shining majestically. It’s s a warm summer afternoon in this small, western Pennsylvania town.  As I open the door to the library, the burning handle scorches my fingertips.  Acting as a portal to a world of mystery, magic, and history, the Mars Library is busy on this blazing Thursday.

by Bethel Glumac

I'm staring up at the ceiling, listening to rain pound on my roof- and I'm thinking about books. How many times have I heard this same sound somewhere else? More times than I can imagine the patter of the raindrops reminds me of my library, and the many delights I experienced there during my teenage years.

by Frederick Cox

A place of relaxation, where I can locate information

A place where I can lose my self in stories

A place where I network with like-minded types of people

That’s the library and all it’s glory

by Eve Cogdell

As a Reporter/Author/Writer/and Poet, I have come to rely very heavily on my local library as a critical point of reference.  For several years, Woodson Regional Library, located just a block from my house, has provided me with the necessary tools to succeed in writing my various articles.  These important research tools include, websites, newspapers, magazines and reference books.

by Cyndee Kromminga

As a young child, I had frequently checked out library books for pleasure. I always thought it was amazing to see the prices of books at stores, realizing that those same books could be borrowed for free at the library.

by Shelley McNeil
 
Although I am still fairly new to the Davenport area, and I haven’t been around forty years like the Downtown Branch, libraries have always been a huge part of my life. Growing up, I lived in a family that was often in turmoil, and we spent a great deal of time moving from place to place. By the time I graduated, I had gone to a total of thirteen different schools.  Needless to say this can be pretty stressful on a kid.

by Andrew Langston

Inside here, he was home.  The dark shadows that hid the far corner could be hiding anything, or anyone.  A silence, surrounding and all consuming, huddled next to him, along with authors such as Steven Kind, H. P. Lovecraft, and Richard Matheson.  The boy was young, and small for his age, a fact amplified by his oversized coat.

by Sara MacNeil

We walked to the Ester Bone library one day when we both had nowhere to be and nothing to do. Although I usually walked there by myself, I shared this walk with him. I talked and while I was he interrupted with a comment about a nice car that caught his attention.

by Lilianna Maxwell

I’m outside in the garden

Soaking up the sun

Lazily turning pages

Of a book I’ve just begun

I’m startled from the story

By my name called from inside

To help my cousin pick out books

I go in to be her guide

by Nancy Scott

It's my secret life—hoarding books for future reading.  Bags and closets full of them, not counting the ones I've read and had to keep and find shelf space for.

by Carmel Glumac

I looked up from staring at my dynamics book, which was open to plane kinematics of rigid bodies. I took the ear buds out of my ears and stared out the window, past the trees, the dorms, the apartments, to the local football arena. What a view here on the 8th floor of the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston! It’s finals week and there are significantly more students than usual, some whispering in groups, some punching numbers into their calculators, and others staring out the window like me, taking in and processing that latest bit of information to be used on that upcoming test.

by Yujung Hu

You arrived in a foreign country to study just a few months ago. You realized that the English you have learned since middle school was only good for reading and writing but not very helpful in making any real life conversations. You were so afraid of talking to anybody but you were desperate to find a way to improve the situation. What would you do? For me, I went to the West Lafayette Public Library in Indiana.

by Bronwyn Commins

As a child, I knew that trips to the library were to be a part of my routine, as much as brushing my teeth, or picking up toys, but not one that had to be told to me more than once. Like savoring a warm meal with family, it was part of what we did as children, part of what our parents taught us to do. I was fortunate enough to have parents who graduated from college before people had televisions in their homes

by Michelle Kang

It’s not too cold, but it’s not too hot, either. In fact, it’s perfect. She turns the page of the thick book she holds in her hands. It’s tilted slightly downwards, but you can still read the cover. It reads The Princess Bride, one of her favorite books. She loves to read; she’s read the same book four times in a row. This is her fifth time.

by Renee Lipford

When I first moved to Pennsylvania ten years ago, one of the first things I did was join the Oxford Public Library.  I was interested in learning about the history of the area, and I was excited to find a whole section of books devoted to local history. 

by Benjamin Yang

It’s 8:40 and I’m on my way.  It’s cold and I rub my hands together, breathing into them to warm them up.  I start my car, backing down the driveway.  Zipping along the road I head toward the library.  The streets are almost empty of traffic as I go along; I see stores opening people busily working to get ready for a new day.  I pull into the library parking lot which is mostly empty except for those like me waiting for the beginning of a new day at the library.

by Cara Lou Strahley

To a naïve, reserved girl who admired her older, more poised neighbor, Ruthie, a trip to the local Paulding Carnegie Library was an adventure!  Usually a stay-at-home, I jumped at the chance, in 1956, to accompany my friend on a walk to the library where she usually chose a book or two to bring home to read.

by Kate McIntyre

There are a million adventures, and a million and one adventurers. Each one has a journey to tell with magic, wonder, and awe. For some the story is on the inside, and for others the story is in a different dimension. All of these stories are found in one place. At this archive of journeys, books scream on their shelves, awaiting someone to live their voyage again.

by Rochelle Cunningham

My first experience in a library was one of awe and humility.  I stood there – fixed in my footsteps, silently looking around at thousands of books.  My eyes wandering over the rigid soldiers in all shapes and sizes, lined up shoulder to shoulder in elegant bindings to guard the many accounts of the past.  Both truth and fiction sat patiently, staring back at me.  I had discovered a connection to something larger than myself.  I was like the sinner on bended knee in gratitude to her creator.  At the tender age of eight, I did not fully comprehend what it meant to be caught in such a moment, though I knew I had entered a place of true greatness.

by Alex Meidunas

Thinking back, libraries have always been a part of my life. I have seen many libraries - even worked in one or two. There have been the public; there have been the school or academic up through university years; the specialized (such as technical, art, and medical); and the personal ones, including my own.

by Michelle Kang

My library is about fifteen minutes away on foot, or five by car if you don’t count traffic. You can find me there almost any time; weekends, holidays, summer vacation, winter vacation, spring vacation. I go there so much that I’ve been deemed ‘total nerd’ by my friends at school.

by Elizabeth Crocker

It was toward the end of my junior year when my AP U.S. History teacher reminded my class of the infamous Research Paper assignment—4,000 words on a topic of U.S. History of my choice, I knew about this from the beginning of the course—but sound of her words resonated in my ears like nails on a chalkboard. I was allotted one month’s time to compose a Research Paper worthy of an exceptional grade.

by Jennifer Livingston

"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker,"  is a direct quote from a very well known woman named Helen Keller.  It is not just an individual person but also groups of people that have the ability to create an environment around us to feel either warm and friendly or pushy and status quo.

by Leslie Powell-Skinner

In these uncertain economic times, here’s a truth that I have found
Using the Scott County Library is financially sound!

Years ago, when sudden unemployment left me in a lurch
I used the library to help with my new employment search

by Yvetta Logan

One of my most favorite places in the whole world is the public library. I love the library because when I enter this majestic building, it seems as though I have stepped into a totally different world. The high cathedral ceiling, walls covered with jewels of knowledge, and the quiet comfortable ambiance of the surroundings.

by Joan Young

In the 21st Century, libraries are repositories of information services. But around the middle of the 20th Century, from a viewpoint much closer to the floor, “my” library was intimate. The Hinman Memorial Library, in my very small home town of Interlaken, New York, is a modest historic building.  Well, that’s what I know now. What I saw then was the most beautiful building in town, its white face cleanly contrasting with the green lawn.

by C.J. Jackson

It’s cliché to say, but I love to read. I have both a library card and hundreds and hundreds of books of my own.

Each book I purchase is another world I can step into by myself and explore as I wish—without rules, without a deadline for finishing, without having to share it with anyone else—because it’s MINE.

by L. Joyce Taylor

I learned recently that there’s a word for people like me:  bibliophile, “a person who loves or collects books.”  This condition started in the basement library of the grade school I attended.  My Hispanic parents worked as laborers in the fields, farms and factories of rural Idaho to support a family of eight.  There wasn’t a lot of extra money for books.

by Marilyn Nelson

My first encounter with a library was when I worked in the Horace Mann Jr. High School library. I did not take out many books because I lived in Lakewood, Ohio and had a lot of playmates in my neighborhood to take up my leisure time and the big Lakewood library was far from where I lived. During high school, I had an excellent English teacher who had my class read Silas Marner by George Eliot. Since there was mystery and intrigue in it, I wanted more books with good stories.

by Ethan Tebbe

I’ve had many great experiences in the library; the resources have helped me countless times before.

Once I forgot to do my essay in school and I couldn’t get any information on-line so I went to the library. At my library, the Romeo Graubner Library, there is a selection of books and a nice staff. With the help of the staff I found two books that gave me all of the information that I needed to complete the essay. The library helped me out of that situation.

by Benjamin Elliot Dabney

In my opinion, the Radford Public Library has a setting that makes you feel welcome, as if you had found a second home. I feel that way because of the inviting groups, the annual Christmas tree lighting, and a section of the library made especially for young adults, like me.

by Molly Richter

Everyone has walked into a library before. It is a public place, where knowledge is virtually endless. With a library card, you can do research for school, search for old newspaper clippings from all over the world, find romance novels for personal pleasure, and above all, find a quiet place to relax and learn something new.

by Jamie Padilla

The crossroad of Billy Casper Way and Bonita Road was merely once an entrance to the Chula Vista Golf Course. However, it wasn’t until 2004 when the Bonita-Sunnyside Library was transferred to this crossroad. Before the library was small and unappealing. Its new location and modern architecture was sure to catch one’s eye. 

by Precious Angel Kelly

I love the Music Library at the University of Illinois (U of I); it has inspired my growth as a student and made a place of knowledge a place like home for me. I used to visit the Music Library with my father and sisters when I was around nine years old. My Dad was not a student at the Uof I, but he could enjoy and enhance his love of music, being a “community borrower”, by having access to all of the musical scores, CDs, and audio equipment the Music Library has to offer. And, he passed this love of music on to his children.

by Jordan Messing

I’ve had many wonderful library experiences ever since I was four. When I was four, I started to go to the library with my parents. The first time I went to the library, I was excited and a little nervous, but then again, I was four. I can’t remember much when I was little, but what I can remember is that the very first library I when to was at my old elementary school, Cromie Elementary.

by Molly Head

I love Romeo community libraries. They have always been a favorite place to go. The library I go to is Romeo Graubner library. I really like going there to get books, magazines and do research when my computer breaks. When I was a kid I always did the summer reading programs and played in the kid area. All the cool things they got going on there and the display cases are another thing I like going there.

by Amber Simpson

I do not remember when I fell in love with reading. This could have been in elementary school during English. This could have been when my grandmother would read my sister and I stories to put us to sleep. Most likely I fell in love with reading when my grandmother would take my sister and I to the Idabel Public Library during our summer months. We began this tradition when I was very young and have continued the tradition as I have continued my love of reading.

by Michelle Pantalena

My library is very special to me.  This library is the Romeo District Library (Graubner Branch).  I have had many fun and special experiences there.  One of the most special events that I’ve had at this library is getting my first library card.  This is very special to me because I have used it a lot since them.  Most of all I like the summer reading program, the librarians, the special guests and the museum adventure passes.

by Samantha Kelley

Victory. I finally found my wallet, which contains, amongst other things, my library card. I was not able to visit the library for weeks. I was deprived of reading anything other than debate research.  My local library, the Carl Sandburg, gives me access to research databases.

by Ashlie Simpson

When most students were asking “When are we ever going to use this” in English class I had my nose buried in a book. I read everything I could get my hands on as an elementary school student from my class reader to the back of cereal boxes. This love of reading soon became a love of libraries when I first experienced instead of just visited a local library, the Idabel Public Library.

by Jennifer Phomsithi

We were sneaking through a closed down carnival, looking for the culprit.  This was a hard task indeed in heels and a pencil skirt, but Nancy and I had weathered bigger obstacles, and in more constricting clothing, before.  Eleven years my senior, Nancy was who I wanted to be.  She was gorgeous, fabulously rich, and, most admirably, incredibly intelligent.

by Jaden Erol Troves

The world is bright and wondrous, and in this curious and never-ending case it is not a single world so full of life, but a universe itself. Each and every hard and soft bound collection of paper contains these extensive and vast scenes teeming and brimming from cover to cover with character of the heart and persons; landscapes from lands far away, right here, or imbedded in our minds; fantastical plots and tales of mere legend or historical truth.