When I was in sixth grade at Greenway School in Bisbee, Arizona, one of my schoolmates died. Billy Caldwell, the son of a local pharmacist, was a year older than I was, and he had been ill for a long time. I don’t remember the exact ailment, something to do with his heart, I believe, but it came as a shock to the whole school when he died. In lieu of flowers, people donated money to buy books for the school library.

Because he had been unable to participate in any outdoor sports, Billy had developed a love of reading. When it came time to purchase the books from those donated funds, his mother took charge of the project. My remembrance of Mrs. Caldwell is that she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. I know for a fact that some of the teachers sniffed and tut-tutted at her selections, but Mrs. Caldwell paid them no mind. She made it her business to buy the kinds of books that her son had most loved to read.

When the books arrived, they were put on a special shelving unit under a plaque that said, “In Memory of Billy Caldwell.” I can tell you that the shelf in question was almost empty most of the time. There wasn’t a single “educational” book among them. Mrs. Caldwell had stocked it with the kinds of books other kids loved to read as well: The Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, Trixie Belden, the Dana Girls. The Black Stallion books by Walter Farley were there, and so were some rather racy (for elementary school readers) Zane Greys–Riders of the Purple Sage, Robber’s Roost.

I doubt there are any of those books left in existence because the kids wore them out by reading them; by loving them. And because I spent a lot of time during seventh and eighth grades working in the library and checking books in and out, I snagged most of them and read them as well.

The stories I found there fostered my love of reading as well as my love of libraries. I suppose Billy Caldwell and his mother were partially responsible for my eventually abandoning teaching English in favor of becoming a librarian.

And here’s a hat tip to the Bisbee I grew up in. The school board decreed that school libraries were to be open one day a week during the summer. Being able to come and go that one day a week with a RadioFlyer wagon load of books to read was one of the high points of summer vacations.

Occasionally people write to me apologizing that they have read my latest book from a library collection. I don’t know why they feel a need to apologize. The free libraries we have in this country mean that even in times of fiscal uncertainty, people who can’t afford other kinds of entertainment can still lose themselves in the world of books.

So why am I talking about libraries? I’m writing this on a Thursday afternoon on the patio of our home in Tucson. Tonight I’ll be receiving an award from the Pima County Library Foundation. And next week, I’ll be participating in an event in Scottsdale that will benefit the Friends of the Scottsdale Public Library. At the time I agreed to do these two events, I thought we’d be in Tucson for the fall and early winter. Several circumstances combined to change our snowbird migration schedule for this year. That meant that we had to make a special trip down here for those two events. But I’m here and I’m doing them. Why? Because libraries are important!

As for Bella? She’s not much for libraries, but she’s glad to be here too. She’s outside chasing lizards. I’m happy to say she hasn’t caught one recently. Lizards are evidently harder to catch than moles.