You should use your library. I’m a teacher and a parent (as well as a writer, for those of you here for that) so I use my library a lot for that. I pickup books my school library doesn’t have (a lot of cool graphic novels the kids are into, as well as picture books, and DVDs sometimes), and for my daughter we snag 15-20 new picture books a week. This girl is obsessed with books. The floors of our house have stacks here, stacks there. And that’s not even from us being bad at cleaning (I will say we are two working parents with two young kids who go to music class, gymnastics, etc.), it’s from my daughter being so excited she goes to her closet (there’s a pretty extensive collection in there) and grabs some of her favorites to read in this room or that room. We also have a constant flow of new reads coming in the mail, which she loves (originally this was how we got our books, but even getting them second hand from www.abebooks.com, our wallets just couldn’t keep up with the demand). So, as you can see, the library is a huge money saver for us.
Our library has a load of resources. It’s a little ridiculous how awesome the services they provide are. During the pandemic they’ve been drive through only, which has meant we’ve been able to teleport books from the entire Wichita library to whichever branch we’ve wanted. It’s been awesome. We’re talking about almost any title you can think of being available to us…for free! And they’ll send it to the library closest to your house (there’s so many in town there’s a convenient location for almost everyone). They also have some really cool search features to help you find great reads easy (want a Caldecott winner? Newberry? William Allen-White? There’s a button for that). They also have a cool Grab Bag feature (you tell them the kind of books you or your child are into and they pick up to five titles for you and you come pick ‘em up), as well as a book or movie recommendation feature based off a short survey you fill out. They also offer homework help for kids, as well events to come to (most of which are out in the courtyard or on Zoom right now, due to the pandemic).
And, I’m sure, this is not at all an extensive list of the services provided by our library here in the middle of America. So, you should totally take advantage of whatever awesome services your library provides. And, you should probably read more. I said it. Go read a book! I’ve been reading graphic novels lately (started off by accident, but is now turning into a choice, lol), so there’s no excuse that there’s not something out there that will be breezy enough or accessible enough for your tired and/or busy mind! Research shows reading’s good for adults as well as children. So, get going. Enjoy your library!