From Kathie Johnson of Neighborhood Children’s Library in Berkley, CA.

How My Library Came About

I began collecting books as a young 5th-grade teacher. My principal’s wife was big on book fairs, and I got hooked. This was in the 1960’s, and many of the large publishers were just coming out with paperback versions of their children’s books. I loved finding a book that would motivate a child. Because I had a wide range of reading levels in my classroom, I bought books for a wide range of interests and difficulty. Summers off gave me time to read, so I became quite familiar with many of the books. I found I had an affinity for children’s books.

When I had a child of my own, I bought more books for the very young. In 1973, I was living in Detroit for a year, in a Catholic neighborhood where the kids felt safe to roam from house to house. I had my children’s books and many toys in my basement, and the kids loved to come there. I was totally charmed by the way older kids played with younger ones and read to them.

Back in Berkeley the next year, I was now a single mom and had to work. My son’s childcare provider was devoted to books, and I loaned her many of mine. I continued to buy—now from garage sales, and sometimes used book stores (both readily available in a town of readers). When this woman started a preschool, and later an elementary school, they continued to use my books, and I continued to buy. My books were stored in a neighbor’s garage, which was dark and spidery, so I was the only one who went in.

In 1985, I had been remarried for several years. An uncle died, leaving me a small bequest. I knew just what I wanted to do—create my dream library, with the feel of the basement in Detroit. I had my garage and basement refinished and built-in shelves added. I cleaned all the books and arranged them by topic on the shelves. I included a toy room, with lots of things for kids to play with. The toy theme now changes, with a rotation of seven months. In 1986, the library opened. At first, there were just a few neighborhood kids, but then a mom who had started a play-date group discovered me and soon after, a Jewish home-school group. Soon I had the library open in two-hour time slots four times a week, and it was always busy. 

Since then, participation has varied, with Christian home-schoolers being the most delighted to find it, but also public school families enjoying it. Many people come from a distance. I have a summer reading game each year that is geographical in nature. We read our way across the U.S., took two more years to finish the Western Hemisphere, and have been alternating between Europe and Asia for the last several years. It’s a wonderful reading motivator and gets kids reading books they would never otherwise discover. I have parties and awards for every participant at the end of the summer.

I learned that I LOVED hunting for books for people. I like making suggestions to parents if they ask.

I don’t charge any fees. I devised my own plan for arranging books and setting up a computer system. I don’t use Dewey Decimal, but just keep things simple. If you want a dog book—fiction or non-fiction, look on the “dog” shelf. People seem to like it. There is an index card in each book—just loose—no pockets. Each person who uses the library has an envelope and the cards are put there when a book is checked out. In my computer, I can find books by author and title, but also by topic (each book has up to 6 topics listed). 

My books range in interest from board books for the very young to books for tweens and early teens. Often, later teens have continued to come back to read some of their favorites. For a number of very young infants, a trip to “Miss Kathie’s library” has been a first outing. I have tried to develop a “complete” library, with books on as many subjects as possible, and books at different reading levels on the same topic. Over the years I have acquired many books about children’s books. It’s been satisfying to realize that I have the majority of the books considered the best ones.  

There were several years in the 1990’s when my husband was speaking widely around the country. When I went with him, the first thing I did when we got to a new town was to look up the used book stores. I almost always had a big box of books to send home by the time we left. I now have over 36,000 books and have been running out of space, but I still add a few books each week. I am aware that I have MANY books no longer available in libraries. 

One of the pleasures I have had is introducing people to one another. Some great friendships have developed, especially among home-schooled families. I was sad when COVID caused me to limit visitors to one family at a time for a period, but people still meet other families at my summer parties, which are outside. Another pleasure is just watching kids play, grow and develop, and take the magical step of learning to read. I have always added people by word-of-mouth, but these days people don’t think you’re real if you don’t have a website, so I’m thinking about it. 

This article is part of our Librarian Notices series of library stories at The Card Catalog. You can connect with us to comment on this story or any of our other library stories on our Facebook page.