The internet and coffee shops are no replacement for libraries
Not too long ago, I was spoon-feeding my nephew baby porridge, when I overheard a piece on the breakfast news about libraries. My ears perked up. Like every author, I feel a seeing-red-rage rise up inside me each time I hear about the library cuts.
I looked up. A spokesperson from the Institute of Economic Affairs began their spiel.
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I gave my nephew another a spoonful of porridge.
I listened.
I missed my nephew’s mouth with the spoon.
I started making outrage-noises; they sounded not unlike a snorting pig mixed up with a pot of boiling water.
My nephew grabbed his porridge spoon.
I grabbed my laptop and started typing out the words that I was hearing. They seemed so ludicrous that I thought I’d heard them wrong.
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Your average library doesn’t come close to having as much information as the Internet.
And coffee shops have the internet.
We don’t need libraries anymore - you can books online instead for literally pennies!
My nephew covered himself in porridge: eyebrows, nose, most of forehead, a lot of his fluffy hair too.
The breakfast news slid onto its next story, in that compartmentalizing way it has, and we were left reeling, porridge-splattered and screaming.
There has been so much written already about the power of libraries, the need for them, the magic that so many of us have found within their walls, that I won’t repeat that here. Go read what Cathy Cassidy wrote about them on National Libraries Day or any of the articles by Malorie Blackman or SF Said’s Twitter account.
Cathy Cassidy: we must all speak up for libraries
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But that was what I then started stuttering to my now-encrusted nephew. I told him how important they were, how they were for everyone.
EVERYONE, I annunciated. I mean that, I told him. Everyone. Just think about it, I said. That’s you, me, your parents, your grandparents, the lads that live next door who jump over the garden fence when they get home late, the staff at the post office who always smile at you, the girl with the green hair who helped us on the bus when your pushchair fell over. Everyone you have ever met. And all the people that you have not yet met. All are welcome.
I told him how, growing up, his Mum and I had spent a huge chunk of our teendom in our local one. We didn’t have any pennies back then and you know what, we didn’t need a single one either.
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I remember those days so clearly. My sister and I burrowing into shelves as though we were mining for gold, dreaming about the kind of life that we wanted to lead, the jobs we wanted to do, the kind of people that we wanted to be. Each book was so much more than the paper it was printed on; they were doors, possible pathways into our future, and by just being there in the library, we had all the keys.
My nephew listened silently with an air of almost solemnity, although this might have been because I had started feeding him again.
What I really wanted was something to do with this outrage but I also wanted to understand how a person really felt this. How did someone really believe that the internet and coffee shops were a replacement for libraries? Could they really believe that affording to buy books online was a good substitute? Or were they just giving an opposite view, putting on a show, a black to a white, to make an annoying bit of telly?
It made me wonder if this person had ever been into a public library or had ever needed one. It seemed that they did not. But could they not imagine someone who did? Could they not imagine someone who had not lived their life?
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A few weeks later, visiting my nephew again, I took him to his local library and we registered for his library card, just a few weeks shy of his first birthday. It felt like the most important thing that we had done together since he arrived in the world. It was a priceless gift I was passing onto him. For now, we would enjoy reading through the various ‘That’s not my Meerkat/Squirrel/Cow’ titles but one day, when he became a teenager himself, there’s a place he can go to find himself, at a time when he’s working out who on earth he actually is.
In October 2016, I’m proud to be part of YA Shot, a festival whose existence funds a libraries-schools programme of free author events. They will all be hosted in libraries because we want to give all the young people who are part of it, the same gift that I gave my nephew that day.

And we hope that should they ever need it, they will find the doors are still open.
All this month (June 2016), I will be visiting a different library every day and writing about who I meet, what I see and what I learn. I’ll be tweeting (@bookhorse ) and instragramming about it (@iambookhorse) using #30days30libraries so hope you find me there!
Polly Ho-Yen’s The Boy In The Tower is available to buy from the Guardian bookshop.
YAShot is a one-day YA and children’s literature festival in Uxbridge, London on 22 October that hosts 72 top uk authors and 12 top book-bloggers and bloggers in a programme of over 35 panel, in conversation and workshop events. Ticket sales to the day raise the money to run a programme of up to 35 free author events at local libraries, who then invite in local schools to inspire a love of reading, a passion for creative writing and encourage aspirations to careers in the Arts. Full info and tickets are available via our website: www.yashot.co.uk