While it’s not unusual to pay tribute to the tremendous role coaches can have in our lives, it may not be common to pay tribute to a librarian.
But school faculty of any sort can be of seminal influence for the better, and my grade school librarian, Dorothy Lill, was a blessing to student lives for a solid quarter century. Mrs. Lill, who died earlier this month at age 92, showed me how books can open my mind — and, more importantly, feed my spirit.
I spent 10 years, pre-K through eighth grade, at Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans. The whole time, Mrs. Lill ran Trinity’s little library not merely as a pedagogical tool but as a place of wonder.
To understand Mrs. Lill’s influence, it helps to understand that she exactly looked the part of a librarian. Actually, she had the mien of one particular sort of librarian.
A stereotypical librarian’s “look” starts the same, with the same facial aspects, but can go in either of two directions. There are the intelligent eyes behind narrow glasses, a personal tidiness and economy of movement, and a sense of placidity. But the same basic facial features can be used in two ways. Librarian One has eyes that glower (with brows that arch) and lips that purse. Librarian Two has eyes that sparkle and a mouth quick to sneak into pleased little smiles of delight.
Mrs. Lill was Librarian Two, to the nth degree.
What was most remarkable about her was what catalyzed that delight. For every child that gave her even half a chance, Mrs. Lill had an absolutely uncanny ability to discern just which books would be of most interest and be at the right reading level, at just which time. Preternaturally perceptive, Mrs. Lill would know how hard to sell a particular student on a particular book. Sometimes she made her recommendations sound like the merest of suggestions, at other times, she would physically walk with the student over to the shelf while saying, “I know exactly what you’re looking for!”
I never knew her to be wrong. In third grade, with me being an able but not enthusiastic reader — I would much rather be outside playing sports! — Mrs. Lill reintroduced me to the Chronicles of Narnia books my mother had read aloud to me several years earlier. It worked like a charm. Having re-hooked me on books, she kept leading me onward.
From there, it was on to the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, then to all 40 of the books about the Land of Oz. After that, came the Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper, and then the faith-infused sci-fi books of Madeleine L’Engle, beginning, of course, with A Wrinkle in Time. Interspersed with these, whenever she sensed without me even saying that I needed a break from those sorts of fantasies, she would suggest books on sports, or a random spy thriller, or, as I became inspired by the nation’s bicentennial celebration, an accessible book or three on American history.
Anyway, Mrs. Lill’s little but radiant smile of delight would emerge when the student returned the book and expressed enthusiasm about it, especially when, almost inevitably, they asked if she knew of more books like it.
As for me, I was blessed with plenty of superb teachers. But I would not have wanted to become a writer if I hadn’t first become an avid reader. That would not have happened, not in such a soul-stirring way, if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Dorothy Lill. To this day, her enthusiasm lives in every page I turn.
