An Ode to Libraries - Wendy Meddour

This month we are delighted to have Wendy Meddour as our guest blogger. Wendy spent many years teaching English Literature at Oxford University but took a little break so she could concentrate on writing children's books. Only (thankfully for us readers) that little break turned into a big break and, though she's back teaching at university, she still loves writing for children and really can't stop.


I wrote 'How the Library (Not the Prince) Saved Rapunzel' before they started shutting them all down! I hadn’t planned to write a book ‘with a message’. I was just writing a love letter to the places I loved:


The library was always a magical place for me. And on occasion, it was also my child-minder. I hated going into the city centre when I was little. All those stuffy shops, shopping bags and legs. So when Mum needed to go and wrestle with the crowds, I would ask her to leave me in the children’s section, cross-legged on the floor reading books. (What can I say? Things were different then). It was one of the highlights of my week. Shelves upon shelves of colour and thought – just waiting for me to jump in and get lost.
The library was my ‘Faraway Tree’: I’d climb its branches and know that it would always take me somewhere new. It was my passport and the place of my dreams. And I was allowed to take some of those journeys home. For free! Those childhood years, in which I sat cross-legged on the floor reading books (instead of being bruised by shopping bags) led me to where I am now ...  

I took my paper pockets of thought home and read them in the top of the airing cupboard. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a sociable soul and my outside-of-the-airing-cupboard childhood was a very happy place. But whilst I was curled up on the top shelf behind the towels, reading book upon book upon book, I learnt empathy, humour, compassion & escape! For a child in a fairly cramped space, my world became extraordinarily large. This undoubtedly helped me on my way. I did pretty well at school. I travelled. I married someone from completely somewhere else. I got a doctorate and taught English at Oxford University. I made a living out of reading and writing books! Libraries led to lots of good stuff. In fact, I hold libraries and their contents largely responsible for the shape and colour of my life! And my life to date has been rather colourful. So thank-you libraries - you were my Mrs Doubtfire. My Faraway Tree. My very own Nanny McFee. 
To conclude a post about libraries, it seems appropriate to end with 'Story Time'. So here's a little snippet from the end of my picture book. Beautifully illustrated by the very brilliant Rebecca Ashdown, it says all I want to say:
Now Rapunzel has changed and it makes her wince,to think that she used to just wait for a prince!That she used to just sit.That she didn’t move –with nowhere to go and nothing to prove!
For now she reads three books every nightUnder the beam of her bedside light:She can tell you the distance to the moon,    she can do Scottish dancing & play the bassoon.She can speak in four languages, skip and play chess,she can knit tiny egg cups and cross stitch a dress, She knows the difference between crows and rooks –And all because of ...
  ... LIBRARY BOOKS!
So don’t just wait for a prince to show, He might turn up, but you never know. Just pop to your library and borrow a book –There’s so much to find out if only you look:But don’t just sit and wait and stare . . .
When there’s more to life than growing your hair!

To keep up to date with The Bookseller’s campaign on Twitter, follow: @fight4libraries
To keep up with me (now I'm out of the airing cupboard), click here
To read a great article about libraries by Neil Gaiman, click here 
And to see a jolly photo of Einstein, don't go anywhere!