How the Library Card Changed My Life

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Overcoming Dyslexia

Ande Fraser, a home-schooling mother of three based in Smithburg, Maryland, says she had to learn to “think outside the box” when she found out her 10-year-old son, Carrington, was dyslexic.

“We had to look at how we were addressing things in life,” she says, referring to her family who reads together every night.

“It was truly a heartbreaking challenge for him,” Fraser says of Carrington, who has a hard time reading. “He didn’t want to be left out because everyone else was reading.”

Fraser praises the librarians at her local library for taking a real interest in her son and helping him learn to read. In fact, a librarian recommended teaching words as shapes formed by characters rather than through the phonetic method. This helped Carrington tremendously, and now he carries a book with him wherever he goes.

“None of this would have been possible without our library card,” she says.

One of Fraser’s proudest moments was when she heard her son encourage a 70-year-old man in their congregation who was also dyslexic. Carrington told him, “You just have to work harder to dig out your treasure.”

Becoming Confident

Dwight Bain, life coach, counselor and author in Orlando, Florida, describes himself as a social outcast when he was young.

“I was the bookworm,” he says. “I was a really shy kid.”

When Bain was young, his parents, who didn’t finish high school, encouraged him to read a lot because they saw education as the way out of poverty.

Bain began frequenting his local library because he saw it as education that was free. Gravitating toward nonfiction and biographies, Bain would check out whole sections and “just devour them.” The librarians were very helpful to him. They would often recommend certain books and authors they thought he’d like. Reading also gave Bain better confidence in the classroom because teachers were impressed with what he knew.

That knowledge from being well-read benefited Bain as a teenager when he was promoted from an intern at a radio station to the host of his own show, where he’d interview four authors a week. Eventually becoming a certified counselor and family law mediator, Bain later hosted a local PBS show called Family Works that focused on parenting tips.

Bain has passed his passion on to his kids. They go to the library often as a family, and he says with pride that his daughter’s test scores were above average when she entered college; something he attributes to her inherited love of reading.

Experiencing New Things

Laura Curley of Chicago got her son a library card as soon as the 3-year-old could write his name. She’s grateful for the wealth of knowledge the library offers her now 4-year-old son, who favors authors Roald Dahl and Mary Pope. But Curley is especially thankful for the Chicago Public Library’s Kraft Great Kids Museum Pass program, which offers free family passes to multiple Chicago cultural institutions.

“To me, it’s one of the greatest things the City of Chicago has ever conceived,” she says.

Because her family lives in the suburbs, Curley says without the passes they would probably only make the occasional trip downtown. But the Kraft museum passes have allowed them to go to the Art Institute of Chicago three times and the Adler Planetarium a dozen times. They’ve also visited the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and Brookfield Zoo.

“Without that library card, there’s no way that he would get that constant exposure,” Curley says. She appreciates being able to take her son multiple times to places such as the Art Institute. “It’s a neat feeling to be able to provide for your child and not have to worry about being able to afford it,” Curley says.

Now her son knows where everything is at the Art Institute and has recently taken up an interest in the impressionists.

“When my son started talking about Monet, I was happy I could take him to see it in person, rather than in a book,” she says. “He was star-struck!”