It was a truck of sorts, a library on wheels
full of posters, maps and books to explore.
I was lifted from the pages to another world,
from the Amazon jungles to a New Zealand shore.
Like a soaring kite my dreams would fly
as if to a magical place beyond,
through billowing soft clouds high up in the sky.
Sometimes my heart found a new friend
living between the covers of a book
sharing secrets, confessions and experiences in life.
And, I could imagine their face and their world
as the images and visions swirled around in my head,
and the stories and characters that lived on as I read.
Some I would go back and visit again
choosing them over another new ‘friend’ instead
when I climbed aboard the ‘book mobile.’
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Page notes: The ‘Book Mobile’ was the traveling library that came every week to my elementary school in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We were allowed thirty minutes to browse, look through the selection of books of all kinds and on all subjects, both fiction and nonfiction, and then check out our choice for that week. We were given a week to read that book or books if we chose two (our limit) before returning it/them the following week to check out another. It was one of the events while in grade school I loved most because it was what I loved doing most; reading.
Joyce E. Johnson (2014)