One of my priorities when I started teaching was to build a big classroom library full of books that my students would want to read. To that end, I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars acquiring books that I knew kids liked, and over the last 29 years I have assembled a library that fills six bookcases.
That's a lot books, and it is despite the fact that I have lost many to careless and unscrupulous borrowers. In fact, any used book sale within 5 miles usually has one or more volumes stamped with my name and a plea to return it. And just this week, several teachers cleaning out new rooms have brought me books that the previous occupants had on their shelves, despite the clear labeling.
But when, upon returning to my classroom after summer break, I unwrapped my neatly papered cases, I found a note that I had left myself back in June. Go through these bookshelves! it advised me, as well as to Have a good SY 2022-23! At my age, I have come to embrace writing myself reminders, especially prompts for the middling future. To be completely honest, I had no recollection of writing that note; I just recognized my own handwriting and knew that it was good advice.
Even so, my bookcases remained a bit of a jumbled mess for the entire first week that I was back to school. It was only today, with many other must-do tasks looming, that I began work on the shelves, slowly at first. As I sorted through the volumes one at a time, I noticed a few things. First, there were the multiple copies of books that were wildly popular in their day, but then flamed out, supernova-style. There were also books that were ragged and repaired with packing tape and sharpie. And finally, there were many books that were obsolete, their plots either too dated to ever become classics or too offensive by contemporary standards for me to conscionably to keep.
So I grabbed an empty box, took a deep breath, and for the first time in 29 years started paring my library instead of adding to it. As I worked, depositing box after box of discarded paperbacks outside my door, colleagues came by to express their alarm and concern. "Are you actually throwing books away?" asked one, and when she put it like that, my stomach did a little twist.
I read years ago about a trick to clean out your closet. The advice was to turn all your hangers so that the hooks are facing inward. Whenever you wear something, replace it and its hanger the usual way. After a certain amount of time, months, a year, whatever, you will be able to see what you have worn, and what you have never touched. If you haven't worn it in that time, then you should get rid of it.
For me, the problem with that method is the worry that I might really need or want that particular garment sometime, and then I would regret letting it go. The same was true for certain books today. I knew they hadn't been read in many years, but I had to decide if they would ever be in demand or appreciated again.
A movie novelization of Little Women published in 1994 really drove the dilemma home for me. There was Winona Rider, as the character of Jo March, right on the cover. I got Little Women for Christmas the year I was in sixth grade, and I absolutely loved it. Plus, kids today might appreciate reading a book with Joyce Byers from Stranger Things, right?
No!
It wasn't even the actual novel.
I tossed it, but the struggle? Was real.
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