Read for Freeeee!

I love the library. I still dream about the library of my childhood and its creepy marble staircase. When we moved to suburbs I found the local library and spent hours there in the evening when I was in high school walking its aisles looking for fun things to read. (Yes. I know. I was and still am a nerd).

When I moved to LA, I tried at first to go to the library in Santa Monica but the smell of homeless urine was too overwhelming for me. In 1983 we moved to Hermosa Beach which has a number of nice suburban libraries in the area although none as nice as the one during my teens.

I took my children to the library all the time. We poked through the books in the small children's section in Manhattan Beach every couple of weeks. When I was working, my housekeeper took them for story hour . As it turns out, my daughter loves the library. (We also took her to Borders a lot during her childhood). My son not so much although he talks about getting his son to the story hour.

I now take the next generation to the library. Two weekends in a row now, my grandson and I have gone to the library. Last week we went to Torrance and this week to Redondo. Both of those libraries have large children's sections with toys and ample tables and chairs. They have books at a child's eye level and dvds or videos in a separate section. My grandson loves it there! He pestered me all morning to go to the library. You can't ask for much more than that.

I typically do not take books out of the library anymore for myself. My husband buys so many books that we have more recent releases than the library. But I love the audio books in the library. They carry The Teaching Company audio and video courses, Modern Scholar audio courses and a lovely selection of recent nonfiction. For example, I am listening to "Traffic" and "Musicophilia" courtesy of the Redondo library and watching "Genetics" thanks to the Torrance library. The PV library also has a good selection of audio books and course but you have to pay a $1.00/disc to borrow for a week. The other libraries loan them for free and for 3 weeks.

Did I mention that I love the library?