A land that encouraged me

I am 12 and newly at high school. Libraries have not been part of my growing up. Books were not something my family shared or gifted each other. Yet, at first, my childhood was furnished with classics and beautiful hardback editions of books. They arrived courtesy of a retired schoolteacher, Miss Anne Brown, who lived across the street in our tiny culde-sac in Ripponlea in Melbourne, and who took a real interest in my reading life. We moved to a house closer to the hustle and bustle of St Kilda when I was 7 and the constant supply ended. 

Instead, I reread the dozens of English classic novels that ‘Aunty Anne’ had given me, all with beautiful inscriptions in her flowery hand, together with a massive supply of hardbacks: Enid Blyton, the Anne of Green Gables series, the Heidi series. All were arranged and rearranged on my shelves. 

Then, in the 1970s the St Kilda library was built. I had heard there was a new library, but I personally discovered it one day when I was in search of information for a Year 7 assignment. I rode my old red Malvern Star bike up Carlisle Street in St Kilda and was astonished at what was before me — a living, breathing building of books, books and even more books. From that day on, I spent every weekend in that library. St Kilda Public Library, unbeknownst to me at the time, had been fought for and won by the community. Designed in the 1970s brutalist architecture era by Enrico Taglietti, its concrete and wood, strange angles, indented areas, soaring ceilings and slanted outdoor staircase were the opposite of libraries I had read about in books. To me, it felt like a ‘pretend library’, there for a bit of fun, not intimidating or old and musty. The architecture was in fact a nod to St Kilda’s position by the bay and was intended to appear as a ship arrived into port. What a port of salvation it was for me. 

Inside it felt odd, like a 70s spaceship. Everything was orange and brown, with large lights and plastic furniture. There were bright orange and white vinyl swivel chairs dotted about the place. It was welcoming and disarming all at once. The books lined the shelves, waiting there for us to wander around, take a look, pull one out, flick through, read or borrow it. I was allowed to look through any book! That I could then borrow them for free and take them home with me was like being offered a magic key. 

I rode my bike to that library through rain, hail and bleaching heat. I would ride from home or from the bakery I worked at on weekends or drop by after my paper round during the week if the library was still open. It sat in the middle of my life, both physically and mentally. It was as if its bright, weird boxy design and its flamboyant orange carpet were always calling me in. 

I spent weekends doing my homework there, seated at a white, plastic desk alongside other people at their white, plastic desks. I took long breaks and lost myself in the aisles, discovering poetry, novels, encyclopedias and art books. Hours of homework time would be lost and I would chastise myself as I dragged my feet back to the desk area. Often with a book or two in hand, one of which would be read at the desk in that frenzied manner of youth where the only thing in the world is the story before you. My homework barely attended to.

Later in life I was astonished and then envious of my friends at university who had parents who carefully guided their reading, offered them books from family shelves and discussed which books were important. But now I look back at the incredible joy I had in discovery. For under those massive square lights, within the confines of orange and the laughing of children down in the ‘kiddies section’, I was free to roam and to select anything I chose. At times those choices were unschooled, while others were evidence of my secret burgeoning sexual awakening. So too, there were books that changed my life, my ideas on writing, my sense of who I was. Sunk deeply into one of those swivel chairs, I read the entirety of Great Expectations, my first taste of Dickens. It’s where I read and reread Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Wake in Fright, books by Chaim Potok, Virginia Woolf. Reading Wuthering Heights I was completely transported to the moors of England without leaving the burning heat of an Australian summer. It was in that library that I first read poetry — consumed it, inhaled it. And Shakespeare. Despite not understanding it all I was agog at the iambic pentameter of his work (without the label), the characters and the sonnets.

In that library, fought for by community, built with the vision of a new style of architecture, and nurtured by passionate librarians, I discovered who I was. Outside, the trams of Melbourne hurtled along Carlisle Street; inside was a land that not only welcomed me and taught me that books were there for everyone, but a land that encouraged me. Through the sheer enjoyment of reading voraciously it taught me of the joy in playing with words, of describing and transporting oneself through story. 

I would almost weep when a story ended, having to farewell a character I had bonded with so closely; I wanted to take the book home with me for all time so I could be close to it. But a library is about leaving books behind for others to discover. Often I would pop by the shelf to visit a favourite, take it out and caress it, remind myself of the characters or check certain special passages. It was my way of reminding myself that the book still existed, was still there to touch and leaf through. And when a certain book was missing, I knew that it would be back.