Where did I get the name Limberlost Lady I have always been a voracious reader. My school was in a large brick building in Lakota, ND. The grade school was downstairs and the high school was upstairs. We didn't have a library in grade school instead each grade had a couple of shelves with books. Each grade I was allowed to go to the next room to find books. By the time I had reached 7th grade, I was allowed to go upstairs to the real library. I was amazed at all the books that there were to read. It didn't take long before I had read everything of interest in that library.Then I found the city library. The librarian would only let me go to my grade section. One day my mother told me that she was going to start cleaning the library that night and would clean it once a week. I went with her and did the dusting. When I was done with my work, I would go through the shelves that I wasn't allowed to look at when the librarian was there. What a treat for me. A whole new world of books opened for me. The shelves went all the way to the floor and I would lay down to see the bottom shelves. There I found it. A dusty book that only had tw0 names listed on the card. A book from the 30's that evidently wasn't popular. The author was Gene Stratton Porter and the name of the book was A Girl of the Limberlost. It is a story of a girl that liked to visit the swamp and became an expert on the names of moths and butterflies. I carefully filled out the card and dated it with the stamp, hoping that the librarian wouldn't know that I went out of my grade level. I returned the book the next week when we cleaned the library. It became my all time favorite book and I now own two copies. These two pictures show the Library in 2007. It seems so much smaller now and the heavy old library tables and large chairs have been replaced by bright colored, child sized , tables and chairs. I am sure hat children are now encouraged to read any book they want, no longer restricted to grade level. Labels: