Photo of the Day: “Reading Together” Sculpture, Teaneck Public Library, NJ

I’m a sucker for statues of kids falling in love with books, maybe because I was like that so long ago.

A few weeks ago, with winter still holding Bergen County in its icy grip, I wrote a post about such a sculpture in front of the Maywood Public Library.

Then, in late March, I came across one with the same idea, which I’ve photographed here: “Reading Together,” in the Children’s Reading Garden in the lawn outside the Teaneck Public Library.

This bronze sculpture was created by New Jersey artist Judith Peck. It’s a charming centerpiece of the garden, which was dedicated 30 years ago this coming July.

Quote of the Day (Francis Petrarch, on How ‘Books Give Utter Delight’)

“I cannot have a sufficiency of books. Indeed, I have more than I should... Books give utter delight: they talk with us... and are bound to us by lively and witty intimacy, and do not just insinuate themselves alone on their readers but present the names of others, and each one creates a longing for another.”—Italian Renaissance poet and humanities scholar Francesco di Petracco, aka Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), Selected Letters, Volume 1, translated by Elaine Fantham (2017)

Photo of the Day: Young Readers Sculptures, Maywood Public Library, NJ

I took the image accompanying this post more than a week ago, when snow from the late February blizzard was not only still on the ground but obstructing walkways. That meant that I couldn’t get close enough to read whatever inscription appears on the base of these outdoor sculptures, so I don’t know the name of the artist or the date when this was installed. The next time I return to the library, I’ll see if these exist.

But I couldn’t help but smile when I saw these figures. They evoke what so many of us—including current and former librarians like me—know: that the best time to foster a love of reading is when children are young.

Nowadays, it’s even more urgent that we realize this, as so many digital distractions exist, far beyond what our parents and grandparents feared with the rise of television.

Quote of the Day (Tracy Chapman, on the Importance of the Public Library Growing Up)

“I grew up across the street from a public library, and it was the only place my mom would let me go on my own. I loved books, but to be able to do anything alone when you’re a kid, you’re going to take that opportunity. It was my second home, and I read everything that I could get.”—American singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman quoted by Lindsay Zoladz, “Tracy Chapman Wants to Speak for Herself,” The New York Times, Apr. 20, 2025

The image accompanying this post, of Tracy Chapman at the 2009 Cactus Festival in Bruges, Belgium, was taken July 10, 2009, by Hans Hillewaert.

Quote of the Day (E.B. White, on a Library, ‘A Good Place To Go When You Feel Unhappy’)

“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." — American essayist and children’s book author E.B. White (1899-1985), “Letter to the Children of Troy” (MI), Apr. 14, 1971, in Letters of Note blog

Quote of the Day (Virginia Woolf, on How to Destroy ‘The Spirit of Freedom’ in Libraries)

“To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions—there we have none.”—English novelist-essayist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), The Second Common Reader (1929)

Quote of the Day (James Patterson, on How ‘You Can Explain a World Through a Library’)

“One of the wonderful things about books is it allows us to find out about different ways of thinking, of living, different problems people have, different ways of finding joy. You can explain a world through a library and that’s a good thing. To cut that down is not useful.”—Bestselling American novelist James Patterson, reacting to a Florida elementary school’s removal of one of his youth adult books from their library, quoted by Marco della Cava, “James Patterson: If Florida Bans My Books, 'No Kids Under 12 Should Go to Marvel Movies,'” USA Today, Mar. 15, 2023

The image accompanying this post is a photo of Patterson taken in the Blue Room of the White House on Nov. 21, 2019.

Quote of the Day (Zadie Smith, on Well-Run and Neglected Libraries)

“Libraries are not failing ‘because they are libraries.’ Neglected libraries get neglected, and this cycle, in time, provides the excuse to close them. Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.”— English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer Zadie Smith, “Northwest London Blues,” originally printed in The New York Review of Books, reprinted in Feel Free: Essays (2018)

In her fine essay, Smith notes that there are libraries with different types of functions. One of the better research libraries—yet one that also had, before the onset of COVID, attracted visitors because of its sheer beauty—is the Library of Congress. I took this shot of its magnificent entrance hall while visiting the DC area in November 2015.

Photo of the Day: Brooklyn Campus Library, Pratt Institute, NY

While pursuing my master’s degree in library science at Pratt Institute, I spent many hours inside this landmark 1896 building constructed in the Renaissance Revival style. It is as beautiful outside, with its striking red bricks, as inside, with materials from the Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company.

Photo of the Day: Reading Garden, Leonia Public Library, NJ

This past weekend, while driving around, I decided to stop at the Leonia Public Library, a mile or so from where I live in Bergen County, NJ. It was a spontaneous act that, like many of this kind, proved ill-advised, as the library’s procedures for opening and checking out materials had changed during the COVID-19 outbreak, so it was not open.

But my trip did not prove a total loss. Sometimes, in the noise and haste of my life, I haven’t stopped to observe my surroundings intently. That certainly holds true over several institutions I love—libraries—since I usually go to them having selected in advance which item I want and I try to limit browsing.

But on this day, I could not go inside. Despite having visited the library a dozen times before over the last decade, I had never noticed this reading garden. I immediately whipped out my iPhone and took this photo.

Reading gardens may not always work in densely populated cities where space is at a premium, but they are welcome amenities in the suburbs. What could be more pleasant than sitting out in the fresh air on a sunny day with a good book?

Quote of the Day (Pete Hamill, on When ‘The Way Out of Poverty Was Through the Library’)

“I come from the white working class, but I was fortunate. I had parents that thought things would be better tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and the way out of poverty was through the library. My mother got me a library card when I was five. I couldn't read yet, and there were mothers like that all over New York.”—Irish-American columnist-novelist-memoirist Pete Hamill, quoted in Richard Turner, “Weekend Confidential: Pete Hamill—A Lifetime of Big Stories, Revisited,” The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 19-20, 2019

(Photo of Pete Hamill taken in Brooklyn in September 2007 by David Shankbone.)

Quote of the Day (William Shakespeare, on the Value of a Library)

“Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me

From mine own library with volumes that

I prize above my dukedom.”— English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Tempest (1611)

Quote of the Day (Michel de Montaigne, on His Books)

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”—French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), from The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne, translated and edited by Marvin Lowenthal (1999)

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you happy except when you have a book in your hands,” the perceptive nun who served as principal of my elementary school once told me. Had Michel de Montaigne—born on this date in 1533—been around, I imagine, he might have reassured her that it would all work out for me in the end.

Any blogger—indeed, any writer in the genre known as the personal or “familiar” essay—owes a debt of gratitude to this 16^th century provincial Frenchman. No subject was beyond his ken—especially himself. Countless writers, fearing embarrassment resulting from their own excessive candor, have gathered their courage anew by seeing how much Montaigne dared to disclose about himself.

But books—roughly 1,000 in his library, a considerable number for that time—were the well from which he sustained himself. If you read his essays, just with an eye for their literary allusions, you could compile a curriculum for yourself in the Greek and Roman classics. In fact, he quotes these writers so liberally that you would be well launched toward understanding the substance of these soaring minds of antiquity. 

Great literature helped him realize that self-knowledge was tentative. That is how he came to view the genre he pioneered. (Essai is French for “trial” or “attempt.”)

Photo of the Day: Lenox Library, Lenox, MA

I took this photo while in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts in late August. The Lenox Library began when Mrs. Adeline Schermerhorn, a wealthy summer resident of Lenox, bought what had been the former county courthouse. The property began to be used three years later. It was added to the National Historic Register in 1973 and renovated from 2002 to 2004.