One of the things I miss most about primary school is the book club - the excitement of picking out books and having them delivered to your class, complete with the order form slip tucked inside. I still remember how thrilled I was whenever the book orders arrived. If I hadn’t been so worried about what my classmates thought, I might have sniffed the pages right there in class. Nothing beats the smell of a new book!
I was meticulous about caring for my precious books. You’d never find a crease in any of the pages; I always used a bookmark or memorised the page number rather than dog-ear them. I covered all my novels in clear contact and often lent them to friends who didn’t share my level of care. One book came back with a dried orange juice stain, and I was devastated. After that, I started putting plastic covers over my books before lending them out - because, evidently, clear contact wasn’t enough. I even kept a diary to track where my books were being loaned. At one point, I considered making library cards for everyone, but without a laminator, and not wanting to verge on obsessive - I decided against it.