Libraries and Julia C. Steele
My mother loved libraries
and so did I. We went to two
every single week. Derby Neck
Ansonia Public and both of us
would take as many books as we
could carry. Julia C. Steele would
recommend books to me but she
did not get the idea of children very
much and she'd give me a dry
and factual summary of the plot
even if the plot involved wild leaps
of fantasy Julia C. Steele would reduce
those leaps to page numbers. On page 15
she'd often begin but I listened closely
because she was actually
my next door neighbor she'd gone to grammar and high school
with my father and although she was not
in any sense of the word A Looker she fell in love
late in life although she was probably just 40 I was
10 at the time with a woman who was an
Abby Lane double I wondered if they exchanged
plot summaries or if Julia
did all the summarizing