Libraries as a solace to solitude

How I found comfort when I understood a poem in a new language for the first time.

Feb 23, 2025

This week I’ve been reading a book called Trust by Hernan Diaz. In the novel, one of the narrators describes how when she was 7 years old, her mother passed away during childbirth and to cope with the shock and sadness of it all, she started going to her local library.

“I was seven years old, disoriented in my sadness. For months on end I experienced, relentlessly, that crushing desolate form of homesickness known only to children…In time I discovered the Clinton Street branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. It is impossible to pinpoint the moment when I became a regular patron, but I must have been around nine or ten when I started spending my afternoons in the reading room and checking out books.

Detective fiction became an obsession….I was comforted by the idea of order in their novels…Eventually, just like in the detective novels I read at the library, a new order of sorts arose from the devastation following my mother’s death, one with its own logic and rituals. This new regime, for lack of a better word, was the result of need.”

Reading this girl’s experience with coping with loss, I felt immensely understood. I too was once a child who found solace in libraries.

When I was about her age, my family moved from Bulgaria to America. Suddenly I was living in a completely new country, not speaking the language and I had to start going to a new school.

Because I didn’t speak English yet, I was sent to the underground floor of the new school where there was a small, but cozy room that had a few tables and several rows of bookshelves filled with books. There, I started my “English as a Second Language” classes. My teacher, a kind, white-haired man, told me to pick out books and try to read them.

At first, I wasn’t able to understand anything, slowly in time, my teacher showed me a few exercise, teaching me sentences and showing me the meaning. How does one teach a new language without being able to communicate in the person’s native language? This still amazes me to this day, and I’m thankful to that man for having the immense patience and compassion to teach a child a new language when he couldn’t communicate in hers.

Soon enough I was able to start understanding phrases in English and I started building up my vocabulary. In time, I was able to start reading books.

I remember one of the first books that I was able to read was Dr. Seuss’ "Green Eggs and Ham.” It goes a little like this.

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM.

THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM!

DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE?

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

I didn’t particularly like the book because it wasn’t much of a story, but being able to understand it, through it’s jumble of randomness and obscurity, I felt deeply accomplished.

By the following year, I was dismissed from the English as a Second Language Classes, and I could return to my regular classroom. At that point I had formed a voracious reading habit and always rushed to finish my assignments, so I could go to the cozy corner of the classroom and pick out a book to read. Reading would become a go-to habit in my life. Sometimes it would pea, then other times be not as present, but I always found my way back to it.

These special experiences with books at such a young age, I believe marked the true beginnings of a lifelong relationships, and dare I say, friendship, with books.

Throughout my life, I have searched for solace in libraries and bookstores, bookshelves and books - and always, without a doubt, they have been there for me.

They’ve become a place I always feel safe and accepted, and within the comforts of that safety, I could discover wondrous worlds through stories.

After these early experiences, I can recount multiple other instances in my life where I returned to the library or books as a safe harbor - offering me a return to myself. More so, it was always a return to the comfort and accomplishment that I once felt when I read and understood a poem in a new language for the first time.

During times like these when I reflect on my own past, I wonder if others have felt this similar experiences with libraries or books during their childhood? Of course I know that many many people have, but would’t it be wonderful to hear their stories?

If you’re reading this, I would be very grateful to know and hear about your story with a library or book that made you feel less alone.

Bibliotherapy and Me

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