Travel and Books
April 13th, 2006
Erin T.
Saint Augustine once said that “life is a book, and those who have not traveled have read only the first page.” Perhaps it is fitting then, that the staff of First Book is so well read. We are a national organization, which is, shockingly, national! How many other organizations can speak of Bernice, Louisiana, Dubois, Idaho, or even Norwalk, Ohio with the same knowledge as New York City, Chicago or LA? Who else has Lynda who knows the baggage handler at the Gulfport airport, or a president who has actually met Big Bird? Who can keep track of the places we have collectively gone, and the places that we are heading to shortly? I wonder though, as we run to catch the next flight, make the next contact, distribute the next quarter million books, how often do we consider how these travels influence, educate, and inspire us? We see the work we have done in these communities from coast to coast, giving books to kids, but do we ever take the time to consider the pages of our own books filling with the lessons from our travels? It is a question to consider, but one thing is for sure, the story is a page-turner and chapters and chapters have yet to be written.
Happy Travels!
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3 Responses to “Travel and Books”
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Tara Says:
May 4th, 2006 at 8:59 am
I am a librarian at one of the schools which received a shipment of books from First Books. The children were so excited, and the books were of such a wonderful quality. I wish you could have seen their faces light up and the enthusiasm when they showed their parents the book they got for free. I still see them carrying the Dinosaur Encyclopedia around with them, almost three months later. I want to thank you for each and every one of them. Thank you for all of the traveling you do to help meet the needs of these children!
Tara
Digby Diehl Says:
May 11th, 2006 at 12:26 am
I want to tred lightly here. However, if the joys of travel are being promoted (as they seem to be in this short squib) as demonstrating that people from Idaho can enjoy New York City, then I have a serious problem with this note. The world is quickly becoming a smaller place. We are, indeed, all members of the same global village. The exciting potential of books about the world is that we begin to understand the important similarities that we share. Seeing many parts of the large USA is important. But understanding the richness and diversity of the world we live in is more important.
Cheers,
Digby Diehl
Warren Martinez Says:
December 29th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Dear Mr. Diehl,
I just completed your book “The Milion Dollar Mermaid” and found it very informative relating Mrs. Williams life. To that end I wanted to know if you can provide me with her e-mail address. My reason for askinf is that I am currently writing my life story covering the first 21 years of my life and Esther is part of that. I use to leave in Los Angeles and behind our mom & pop store was a garage where Lou and Arthur painted signs for hotels which announced stars that would be appearing. One day Lou said” Jo Jo why don’t you coame over tomorrow my daughter is going to let me know how she did on her screen test” I did and met Esther Williams I was 8 years old and thought she was the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had tested with Clark Gable. I only wnated to e-mail her to tell hoe much I enjoyed her pictures and most importantly and how much I enjoyed being with her father. If you can’t do this for me I’ll understand.