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    Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Smith
    Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Smith
    Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Smith
    Ebook197 pages1 hour

    Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Smith

    By Sydell Waxman

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    About this ebook

    Have you ever read a book that you couldn’t put down? Has that book taken you to other countries, to other centuries? Have you found yourself brimming with excitement, exclaiming to all who will listen, "Read this book!" This biography is the story of a child who took her love of childrens’ books and found a way to share it with the world as she grew up. Her voice would be the first to carry the message of childrens’ right to read across the world. It is not too much to say that she started a revolution for children’s books in her career as the first children’s librarian in the British Commonwealth.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateDec 1, 2002
    ISBN9781459726321
    Believing in Books: The Story of Lillian Smith
    Author

    Sydell Waxman

    Sydell Waxman's eclectic career has encompassed work as an historical researcher, school librarian, museum lecturer, entrepreneur and writer. Her first book Changing the Pattern: The Story of Emily Stowe the biography of Canada’s first female physician Emily Stowe, was selected for the Our Choice seal from the CCBC and won the Toronto Heritage Award in 1998.

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      Book preview

      Believing in Books - Sydell Waxman

      Credits

      Chapter One

      Have you ever read a book that you couldn’t put down? Have you shivered at the scary parts or laughed out loud at funny lines?

      Over a hundred years ago, a child named Lillian felt this magic in books. Fairy tales like The Red Shoes danced in her mind’s eye. Storms at sea sent her shivering under the covers. She hugged Gulliver’s Travels.

      As she grew older, she was troubled to learn that most children had never heard of Gulliver. Most children in the late 1800s had never trembled at the sight of Long John Silver in Treasure Island. They had missed tumbling down the rabbit’s hole with Alice in Wonderland. Most children lived lives without books.

      Lillian yearned to share her delight of these magical experiences. When she grew up, she struggled to place a good book into the hands and hearts of children everywhere…and she did.

      Most of the libraries you visit, most of the librarians who work there, exist in Lillian’s Forest of Firsts, a realm filled with trees of her new ideas.

      How did she convince people that stories for the young could change the world? Who was this special person whose soft voice carried this loud message? How did she start a revolution for children’s books?

      THE GREATEST

      …she {Lillian H. Smith} made a larger contribution to the personal enjoyment of more human beings than any other Canadian. Several generations are unaware that she was the greatest children’s librarian of the century.

      -Douglas Fisher, newspaper journalist

      NO CHILDREN ALLOWED

      Libraries, as we know them, did not exist in the late 1800s. Wealthy households and private clubs had reading rooms, but the sign often said, No children or dogs allowed.

      Favourite Room

      Music and books surrounded Lillian from the day she was born on March 17, 1887, in London Ontario. Her mother Elizabeth’s piano music, with its religious and classical themes, drifted through their large Victorian home. Her father John Vipond Smith, a Methodist minister and scholar, never tired of discussing English literature. Before she could decipher the alphabet, Lillian savoured the sight of beautiful books, neatly aligned in her father’s library. In this special room, filled with the warm smells of oak, paper and leather, she felt the comfort of home.

      Lillian’s three older siblings, Arthur, Kathrina and Edna, all became willing readers. Shy Edna would curl up with Lillian at bedtime to share Household Stories by the Grimm Brothers. Over and over they enjoyed the tale of Grethel, the hungry cook. Lillian laughed every time Grethel ate the meal meant for company.

      Lillian Smith as a baby

      Eventually, Lillian pulled down Gulliver’s Travels, opened the gold-embossed cover and read the entire story herself. Gulliver’s triumphs made her heart race as though she were actually in the story. She responded so strongly to fictional villains that she left the books outside her bedroom at night. During the day, she slipped behind the tapestry curtains so no one could see her cry through sad stories.

      Elizabeth’s music helped Lillian respond to the rhythmic sounds in well-crafted prose, but the love of the printed word belonged to her father. Admiring him, she grew to share his interests and traits. Like him, she developed a keen mind, strong speaking skills and an overwhelming fascination with ideas and books.

      AN EXPERIENCE

      The thing that makes a book a good book to a child is that it is an experience. The child who has read and enjoyed such a book has grown…gained something permanent which can never be taken away…

      -Lillian Smith

      MAGIC

      For there is magic in the writing of these books; a magic that enchants the children who read them…

      -Lillian Smith

      Pack It Up

      Lillian’s book characters followed her wherever she went. Each time her father received a new Canadian parish, the family had to move. Everyone helped. Lillian, the youngest, packed the treasured books.

      In the new house, Lillian carefully placed her friends onto the dim shelves of the family library. Echoes of her mother’s poetic tunes soon wafted to the images of the stories. This special room, once again, became familiar and comforting.

      Even with flickering candles and the new kerosene lamps, the library was often dark. Lillian searched for well-lit private reading spots.

      An illustration from Clever Grethel, one of Lillian’s favourite stories from Grimm’s Household Stories, illustrated in 1882 by Walter Crane.

      One day she realized that she could take her reading into the sunlight by crawling out one of the upper windows. She plunked down onto their rooftop where no one would bother her. Immersed in the make-believe land of Lilliput, she didn’t notice the prickling wood shingles beneath her, or the motion as she started to slip downwards. Startled, she tried to grip the roof. Too late. Her book flew out of control, spiralling over the edge. Blue sky and green grass blurred. The roof edge whizzed by. With a thud, she slammed onto the ground. Alarmed, Elizabeth and Edna came running.

      The doctor arrived by horse and buggy. He took off his tall top hat under which many doctors hid their stethoscope. He opened his black leather bag and then examined Lillian carefully. If she had been cut, the doctor

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