I took my son to the library for the first time last week. This wasn’t so much for his benefit as my own. Despite his newfound passion for story time, he has no real desire for more books, since he would happily hear one in particular until the end of time. No longer does he seek the narrative heft of Happy Dog Sad Dog, nor the earth-shattering revelations of What’s This on the Farm? for he has become hopelessly infatuated with a new favourite, a desultory effort about a runaway bear.

I’d always, quite bravely, said the Nazis were wrong for banning books. Even their reasoning – that indecent literature could warp your mind, or inspire evil in a well-balanced reader – seemed absurd. I now know it makes a kind of sense, because if I read this book one more time I will break into a zoo and head-butt every last bear I find. I hate this book with a passion that frightens me, and I hate the runaway bear himself most of all. If he was my bear and he ran away from home, I’d throw a street party. Its asinine plot and feckless protagonist have no such effect on my son, however, who will drag it to be read 20 times a day.

For the sake of my sanity I buried it under a heap of toys and took him to the library to expand his collection. I felt a surge of guilt as I walked in because, like so many who love the idea of libraries, I haven’t used them much since smartphones were invented.

I spent a great deal of my childhood in libraries and was delighted to find certain truths remain comfortingly universal – carpet tiles so well-trodden they might as well be lino, arrestingly artful bubble writing in the handmade shelf displays and, of course, the ancient lore of librarian staff… For every two or three pleasant employees there is one who is incoherently furious that people keep coming into their place of work and, rudest of all, reading the books therein.

So it was that Todd, all sweetness and light, showed me where the newest picture books were, the best place to pop my pram, and where the little toys might be found. It was left to his colleague Agnes to scowl at me when I asked for a pen, to sneer at my son like he was a stranded, foam-mouthed rottweiler, and to monitor my itinerary around the shelves as if I might, any minute now, pause by the Mystery section and start recruiting for Isis. It was, in short, a little slice of heaven. We left with eight books, a brochure for a culture evening we will not attend, and – joy of joys – Agnes’s last pen.

Back home, I produced our dragon’s hoard of new literature for my son, who took one look and, straight away, began rummaging through his canvas box to find his favourite. His little friend has run away again, it seems, and we will all have to bear it a little longer still.

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