neighborhood libraries

I was one of those kids who visited his neighborhood library in Brooklyn several times a week and always came away with an armload of books. It was a profound rite of passage when I graduated from a children’s card to an adult card and was allowed into the sanctum which contained Lady Chatterley’s Lover and other such mysterious things; until then, however, there was more than enough to beguile me in the children’s room. Since there was always plenty of time for everything back then, any book I really liked I borrowed and read repeatedly. One book in particular which seized me and set up subterranean forces in my personality that I haven’t shaken to this day was a young adult science-fiction novel called Danger: Dinosaurs! by Richard Marsten, about a group of time travelers stranded in the Jurassic era. Some children might have been traumatized by Bambi’s mother in the forest fire, but I had my first adult lesson in the fragility of life when one of the main characters of Danger: Dinosaurs! was trampled to death by a stampeding herd of brontosaurs. Interestingly enough, for someone who has trouble remembering what movie he saw last weekend, I can still visualize the exact corner of the children’s reading room and even the middle shelf where this book could be located.

Do you have similar books which helped (for better or worse) to define you?  read more »