By the time I had retired I had accumulated a ton of books. Seriously, I think they weighed at least a ton. In the summer of 2020, 2 years before the end of my teaching, I transferred schools in the district. I packed up and brought EVERYTHING home to my attic above the garage. I ignored the looks on everyones faces as I boxed up 600 or so books that I had. (600 divided by 20 years worked out to be about 30 books a year). I was going to go through them later.

Covid stayed and we went back to school online, and my books stayed in the attic. And in my final year of teaching, I used the school library and colleagues for what I needed.

I had always referred to books as our friends to my students. They provided us with stories for fun and learning, and I showed them how to treat our books with respect. They all had a home in our library, and were happy if they were looked at or read. Coloring and ripping was a fun part of art projects, but never with our books.

I decided that in honor of my 21 years of teaching and my love for books to build a library in my home. It was so hard to decide which books to keep. I managed it down to roughly 200 of them. Along with some mementos on the shelves (Steve the turtle, sings funky town and reminds us to speak slowly and listen for sounds in words), I have created a spot where I can go and remember the best part of who I was as an educator…… a storyteller.