As I grew up some of my fondest memories were trips to the library with my parents and my two brothers. We were big readers, so big that we had to bring a large plastic tub to carry back all the books we borrowed to my house. A few times the librarians had to make exceptions for us because we had over 100 books out at a time.
We plowed through the books, returned them, and were back for more.
My experiences at the Rockford Road library were very formational as I fell in love with reading, majored in English and plan on pursuing a teaching degree when I return to the United States.
My students in Guatemala are less lucky. In the second largest city, Quetzaltenango, there are no books.
There are books in ENGLISH for foreigners like myself. There are boring textbooks in Spanish. And if you are able to plunk down over 100Q (roughly $15 US) then you might be able to afford ONE book in Spanish.
For my students, whose families make roughly $40-50 a month, they cannot afford one book.
Public libraries? You better forget about it.
Therefore, in my city there are no books.
More on the book crisis after the flip.
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