Where the Encyclopedias Lived
There was a room at school that always felt like a gentle invitation. The media center. Cool and carpeted, quiet in a way that wasn’t strict, just expectant — as though the books themselves were holding their breath, waiting to be chosen. I’m not sure how often we went — once a week, maybe — but I always wanted more. Any day that brought us back there was a golden day.
Mrs. Praet was the media specialist, and in my mind, she was the media center — glasses perched on her nose, curly brown hair that framed her face, always knowing exactly where a book belonged. There was something reassuring about the way she moved around the room, gently but with purpose, like she trusted us to belong there too. She taught us how to care for books, how to navigate the Dewey Decimal System, how to find the stories waiting on every shelf.
By fourth and fifth grade, we sometimes got extra trips — especially when we were writing papers. Those days were the best. Time in the computer lab, and time with the encyclopedias — which were, to me, the most magical books of all. I loved the way they felt in my lap: heavy, important, humming with answers. I’d flip through pages about tornadoes, oceans, ancient Egypt — and each entry felt like a secret the world was whispering just to me.
And then came fifth grade, and something I still count among my proudest honors: I was chosen to be a Media Helper.
It meant I got to spend extra time there — shelving returns, straightening displays, sometimes even scanning barcodes and checking books in. I remember the quiet satisfaction of placing a book back in its proper place, the gentle click of it sliding home. I loved that I had a role in that room, however small. It felt like I belonged to it, and it belonged to me.
Even now, all these years later, I feel something settle in me when I walk into a library. Something quiet, reverent, and sweet. A kind of remembering — not just of the books, but of the feeling. Of what it meant to be a girl who found a place among them.
I don’t remember every book I read back then, but I remember how they made me feel: curious, powerful, transported. And I remember the way Mrs. Praet handed them to us like gifts — one title at a time.
And maybe my love of writing didn’t begin with writing at all.
Maybe it began there — in the hush of the media center, with my hands on the encyclopedias, and the soft permission to wonder.
—L.B.
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