“Last year, my husband and I joined the Friends of the Library. It was something we should have done years earlier.”
We began using the local library when we moved to Moorestown thirty-seven years ago. Both of us had become immersed in reading at an early age. My husband, Edwin, spent Saturday mornings in the public library of a Mid-Hudson Valley village. I would have visited the Montreal Public Library as frequently if it hadn’t been for the distance: It was three tramways and at least an hour and fifteen minutes away from my home.
When I was 13 years old, I first read Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s timeless fictional book, which he wrote for young readers and for adults who were children before they grew up and became disconnected from their past. I read it over and over. It was fun to imagine myself as the little prince traveling from his mini planet, Asteroid B 612, to neighboring asteroids until he landed in the Sahara Desert. It was fascinating for me to meet a king who regarded himself as an absolute monarch, though he was the only inhabitant of his asteroid. Or to move on to the next asteroid, which was inhabited by a vain man who lived a dull, unsatisfactory life, with no one around to admire and acclaim him.
First I read only books written in French, but then I was given Jack London’s White Fang and The Call of the Wild, which also found a place in my heart, though I had to keep a French-English dictionary at hand to check words that were new to me.
At the time, my mother was chronically ill. She had been ill since I was five years old — twice on the verge of death — and the thought that we might be losing her was never far from my mind. My father, a furniture merchant, was tied to his store six-and-a-half days per week. We had a home in the city and another in the Laurentian Mountains. However, I can remember but a handful of occasions when we traveled outside Quebec Province. Yet the world beyond beckoned. It is in books that I satisfied my curiosity about countries I might never get a chance to visit and fed my imagination while escaping from my worries.
When I first met my husband, he was reading Crime and Punishment, which gave us something to talk about and impressed me no end. Later, when we became parents, we gave our son books written in French as well as books written in English. When he was one-year-old, we gave him his own copy of Le Petit Prince. I showed him the illustrations, then I read it to him until he was old enough to read it.
In the Moorestown Library, we find a friendly environment, a wide variety of books, as well as services, offerings, events and programs for people of all ages. Our public library has evolved into a cultural and educational center. There’s always something going on, whether it’s for bird watchers or gardeners, for opera and history buffs, or budding scientists for whom Science Saturday with the Franklin Institute is a magnet.
This coming Saturday, Feb. 4, I plan to attend an afternoon program about French influence in North America. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, I’ll return to the library for a new offering: an opportunity to meet with Spanish-speaking people — people who came here from other countries and speak Spanish as their mother tongue, and people eager to brush up on the Spanish they learned in high school or college.
A popular library offering is the Book Group in a Bag, which was initiated in 2007. Each bag contains ten copies of a book, printed discussion questions, and tips for effective discussion. As soon as I became aware of that offering, I got in touch with a few other women and formed my own book group, which still meets every month, except during the summer.
We’re all senior citizens from different walks of life. Our opinions and insights color our discussions, which are always interesting and often animated and challenging. Since our first meeting, in the fall of 2007, we have read and discussed 81 books. Through the books we read, we traveled around the world while comfortably remaining seated in chairs in a friendly home environment. We read books we might have never read if they hadn’t been on the Book Group list. In so doing we expand our horizons.
For all that it provides, I’m thankful to the Moorestown Library, its employees and the Friends of the Library who, as volunteers, devote an enormous amount of time to the library and raise money in support of its many services. Indeed, we are all blessed.
Monique Begg
