I just love this:

Garrison Keillor on libraries (I love libraries, too):

...The library is the temple of freedom. Growing up, we kids were aware of how much of our lives was a performance for adults. In school, at church, in Scouts, adults were watching, cueing you, coaching, encouraging, commenting; but in the library, you didn't have to perform for the librarian. She simply presided over an orderly world in which you had the freedom of your own imagination. The silence was not repressive but liberating: to allow your imagination to play, uninhibited by others...

As always with Keillor, it's worth going and reading the whole piece.

It made me think of one of my favorite poems, by Archibald MacLeish, "Eleven." I can't find it online, but check it out. I've never read anything that better brought back how it feels to be a child.