“COULD IT BE MAGIC?”

Sep 3, 2025

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When the most magical place on earth isn't in Orlando, Florida but at your local library.

09.03.2025

It is the summer between second and third grade. I am seven years old, and I’m headed to my favorite place in the world, all by myself. Both my parents work, and my grandparents, who live with us, are in charge.

My grandfather is in the garden harvesting the first of the tomatoes, and my grandmother is baking bread, preparing dinner and hoping she can finish both tasks before my two-year-old-brother wakes up from his nap.

When I tell her where I want to go, she practically shoves me out the door. She reminds me to be careful crossing Shaker Blvd and to be sure to wait for the light. Then she scours through her apron pockets, pulls out a nickel and gives it to me so I can buy bubble gum on my way home.

She doesn’t need to worry about me – I’ve walked this path so often, I could do it with my eyes closed. Up to the corner, across Cromwell Ave, across Buckingham Ave – wait for the light at Shaker Blvd., cross the bridge over the tracks of the rapid transit, pass the bubble gum store, and under the row of sycamore trees where, at the end of the drive, is my destination: The Harvey Rice Public Library.

I walk past the reception desk where the kind, but elderly (mid-thirties) librarian smiles at me. I pause briefly to look across the foyer into the adult reading rooms, and once again count the days – years actually – until I can check out a book from that area. But today, I’m on a mission. I need to report to the librarian in the children’s section and show her I’ve finished another book.

We are encouraged to read ten books over the course of the summer, but I’ve already surpassed that number, and it’s only July. My name is at the top of the leader board, and next to it is a shining array of stars - blue, red, green and yellow - each represents another book I’ve read. There are fourteen stars after my name. The librarian whispers, “Do you think you can read twenty books by September?”

Can Peter Pan fly? Of course I can!

I scurry to my corner of the library. There, I pull out my favorite books – Ballet for Beginners, where through drawings, I teach myself the five positions for my feet. I add the five positions for my arms. I’m practically in the corps de ballet!

Then I open the book on home decorating. I stare longingly at a photo of a teenage girls’ bedroom. The furniture is white and comes complete with a pink gingham canopy over the bed. I weigh the option of whether it makes sense to ask Santa for this set, then reconsider. I’m beginning to suspect Santa is not who he says he is, and I would never ask my parents for such an extravagant item.

My real purpose for being here today, though, is to be the first person to read the latest installment in the Beany Malone* series. Catherine Cecilia, aka Beany, is a young girl who lives in Colorado with her father and siblings, Elizabeth, Mary Fred and Johnny. I grab the book off the shelf, and take a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the new cover, and running my fingers over the crisp new pages.

Beany’s friend, Miggs, has just been thrown off a horse, when I’m interrupted by the librarian. I cannot believe the audacity. How could she disturb me in the middle of a Malone family drama?

She stoops down to my level and whispers, “I saved this for you. I thought you might like it.” Then she hands me a children’s version of The Three Musketeers**.

Before long, I have left the snowy terrain of Denver and am transported to France, 1844. I’m now infatuated with D’Artagnan and want to be a musketeer. I’m reasonably certain I can convince three of the kids in the neighborhood to be Athos, Porthos and Aramis. But who will be M’Lady de Winter? Maybe that new girl who just moved in down the street. If only I knew her name.

D’Artagnan is in the midst of a crushing dual when my trance is broken by the whispered voice of the librarian saying, “She’s over there.” I look up and see my grandfather. My grandmother has sent him to find me. I’ve been gone for hours, and she thinks I’ve been hit by a car or crawled onto the transit bridge and fallen over.

On the way home, I can’t stop talking about the musketeers. I’m so engrossed in retelling the story, that I forget to buy my bubble gum. My grandfather, a kind and gentle man, nods silently. His only request is that I hold his hand when we cross the street.

A version of this scenario takes place over and over again throughout the course of the summer, and for each summer thereafter until I get my first babysitting job that takes up all my afternoon and evenings.

In high school, the library becomes a sanctuary for those of us who aren’t part of a clique. There, we hide in cubicles and pretend we’re too busy doing homework to be bothered by party invitations we’ll never receive.

By the time I am in college, the library becomes a refuge where I can get away from my roommate and her boyfriend, the latter of whom spends more time in our room than either of us.

And when I am in graduate school, my time in the library is spent doing hard core research on the influence of Aristotle’s Poetics on contemporary American drama.

At every stage of my life, the library offered what I needed most: wonder as a child, sanctuary as a teenager, refuge in college, and discipline in graduate school.

I’ve been thinking about libraries a lot these days. They are undergoing a great deal of public scrutiny, but I will always think of a them as the most magical place on earth: a place where you can travel for free and go as far as your imagination will take you.

If you’re brave enough, a library will carry you to places you never imagined and seat you beside unforgettable companions—Beany, D’Artagnan, Scout, Holden, Dorothy, Charlotte***. In time, they stop being characters and become forever friends - ones who will stay by your side and never leave you, no matter what.

Looking back, I know this to be true. Without the library, I would not – and could not – have become the person I am today. My creativity, curiosity, imagination and love of language were nurtured and fostered in the warm safe alcoves of The Harvey Rice Public Library on 116^th Street.

I am forever grateful – and forever transformed.

“Could It Be Magic.” Written by Barry Manilow and Adrienne Anderson. Performed by Barry Manilow. Arista Records, 1973.