Imagine your story, hey at some point you might have to do that as you run out of books and the library is closed.  This is a great opportunity to get a head start on this summer’s summer reading program.  Imagine Your Story is the theme and a very interesting chapter has just been added to all our stories as nothing like this has ever happened before.

However, with the use of folktales, fairytales, fables, and some real life true tales parents have been teaching their children how to survive even in unusual circumstances, forever.  We all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood who wanted to take some goodies to her Grandmother.  It was a nice thought but remember what happened to her?  She should have just STAYED HOME.  Same goes for those three bears, they went for a walk in the woods to visit some neighbors and got way closer than 6 feet to everyone and when they went home they found their house trashed by a little blonde girl.  This tragedy wouldn’t have happened if they had just stayed home.  Remember the one about the wolf who was always huffing and puffing and never washed his hands, I really can’t even think about that one it’s so bad.  Let’s just say it didn’t end well for the wolf.  Quick, go wash your hands right now and under no circumstances are you to ever huff or puff.

My point is stories teach important life lessons in a fun sometimes but always easy to remember way.  A very clever book titled Opioid, Indiana by Brian Allen Carr tells the story of a mother who can’t save herself but she taught her son everything he needs to know by using her imagination and a shadow hand puppet named Remote.  She makes up a legend for each day of the week staring the hand shadow.  After the mom dies the son still finds Remote, the puppet in all kinds of odd places but it reminds him of the lessons and his mother’s love.  It is a book with a bad title but a great uplifting story.  The son, Riggle is seventeen years old and the book does have some rough language.   I think this would be a good book for older teens and parents to read and discuss together.  Since you are staying home anyway, it would give you something to talk about as it does cover many of the current topics of the day.

I just learned an important life lesson this week that Easter bunnies and tooth fairies are essential, I knew that already but the thing I didn’t know is that libraries aren’t essential.  What?  Do you believe that?  Imagine your story if libraries didn’t exist.  Imagine my story if there were no libraries.  Someone would have to make up a library just to have a place to store all the stories wouldn’t they?  Always question, always imagine, but believe in Libraries.