So Many Books...So Little Time by Sandra Rafuse

Photo by Greg Hladun

    

There is a secondhand bookstore in Cranbrook, B.C., that is worth stopping at even if you are just driving through the city and think you don't have time. Stop anyway. The store is large and full of all kinds of items to browse through besides books. When you first walk in, there are shelves of magazines, calendars, key chains, stuffed animals, magnets and much more. As you make your way further down the aisles, the bookcases appear to be endless, and there are signs up on the sides of the shelves telling you what you will find in each section. If you ask where the Children's Books are, you will be directed to the back of the store. It's not that easy to locate it quickly. But you will find it, and when you do, you will step up three narrow stairs, turn left, and you will find yourself facing a small rectangular area with books crammed onto the shelves on either side and at the end. There is a child's chair in the corner that you can pick up and take with you to sit on as you look through the books. Be careful. You will have to step around few stacks of books piled on the floor as you walk further in.

The books are packed so tightly together that you will have to remove at least three or four of them at a time to be able to finger through the others to loosen them up to be able to see the front covers. Once you do that, you enter a world like no other. If you are a book lover, it is a familiar world. One where the comforting scent of old books finds its way into your nostrils. Where your knees and back will get sore from kneeling down a bit lower every few minutes to get to the books below. Where the sounds of voices and movements from other people in the store will diminish and be no more. For you will have been caught up in the excitement of discovery; moving book after book aside, glancing at old familiar titles, then also (oh joy) coming across new titles you never knew existed.

Sometimes you will pull out a book that is in such perfect condition you wonder why that book is in that second hand book store anyway. You will open it up and there, at the top of the right hand page, will be an inscription; To Johnny, Merry Christmas! Love always, Grandma and Grandpa. You will continue leafing through the pages, hoping to find even one small smudge mark, a wrinkle or a tear that will prove that Johnny has gone through the book, even if just to look at the pictures and not to read the words. But often there will be no smudges, no wrinkles, and no tears; the book will be as pristine as can be. I have to admit it makes me rather sad to think that the book wasn't used the way it should have been but it will be one of several you will purchase that day.

I discovered the secondhand bookstore in Cranbrook a long time after I took a university class called Children's Literature. By then I had become a dedicated collector and reader of children's books. And things changed in my classroom because of of what I learned in that class. Story time became the highlight of the day for my students and me. They would sit down and wait expectantly for me to pick up the current book we were reading. Sometimes I shut the lights off to add a relaxed ambience to the room. Unless, of course, we were reading a scary book. Lights on was the rule then. Seasonal books were favourites because when the time came to start one I had such strong feelings of pleasure and anticipation about reading it. I was very familiar with each book by then and the reading of it was profoundly satisfying.

One of my favourite C.S. Lewis quotes is: "A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest". He's right. When I walk past my bookcase I often stop, pull out one of my books, and turn to the page that has my favourite paragraph(s) to refresh and enjoy the memory of those words. And a second favourite quote is: "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally - and often far more - worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond". It's true. Most of the books I listed below are novels for teenagers and each time I read one of them I am amazed at the depth and quality of the writing I am reading. I would not have understood most of what I am reading as an older adult if I had read the book in my teenage years. God used children's books to teach me about life. I learned about the importance of family, of the pain of losing someone you love, of how precious and necessary friends are for all of us from those books. I read how God brought people together because he knew they needed each other even though they didn't know it at the time. And I could always sense his love in every story. The good parts were very good and the bad parts were very bad. Good against evil. You could find it quite easily. I know God has all kinds of ways he uses to teach his people. He used children's books as one of his ways to teach me.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8 NIV

A very short list of some of my favourite children's books:

1. The Christmas Tapestry, and Mrs. Mack, by Patricia Polacco

2. Baby by Patricia MacLachlan

3. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Merrion (Mem) Fox

4. The Very Best of Friends by Margaret Wild

5. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit

6. Homecoming, and Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voight

7. The Dark is Rising; a series made up of 5 books by Susan Cooper

8. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

9. The Best/Worst Christmas Present Ever (that's right...present...not pageant) by Budge Wilson

10. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey by Susan Worjescowski.

 

Sandra lives in Rockglen, Saskatchewan, with her husband, Bob, a very old cat named Kitty, a Gordon Setter named Sadie, and a Peregine falcon named Peet.

She is enjoying writing to share experiences from her life where God has been teaching her so many things.