Both Sides

On the Horizon is a beautiful book.  One that brought me to tears.  Lois Lowry really makes magic with her words.  She recalls her childhood in Hawaii and her time in Japan and recounts the stories of lives lost at Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. 
War.
What is it good for?
They even wrote a song asking that question.
The song's answer is "Absolutely nothing."
I pray one day we will learn from that answer.
Will there be a time, this side of heaven when we look at one another as children of God?  Only then will it happen. 

Stories

are so powerful.  I guess that is one of the reasons why I am passionate about librarians defining their work as a service. That's why I like language like "patron" instead of "customer."  I just feel like we, those who work in libraries are in a service profession.  A relational profession.  One in which we need to be ready, as I often say, to "open a vein" to serve our community.

Long has my motto been, "It's better to burn out than rust away." And when I read a book like Mara's Stories:  Glimmers in the Darkness, I know I am right.

Here is the remarkable Gary D. Schmidt, although there is no D. on the cover, serving all of us, by sharing tales from the Jewish tradition as if they were told from a concentration camp prisoner to those around her, in the evenings, after another day of hell has passed.

These are beautiful and horrifying and hopeful and heart-breaking.  And the author talks about their origin at the end of the book, which makes it all even more  powerful.  Once again, a must-read for all.

And as a librarian, I need to make sure that as many people as possible have the experience of hearing stories such as these.