LIBRARIES: Three cheers for Katie

Kudos to Katie Blank for the outstanding article on libraries. It is spot on. They are key to our freedom of speech, and never should suffer from censorship, or be subject to criticism of political parties.

I grew up in a small, population 300, town in Wyoming, with a tiny one-room library in the city hall, which was serviced, periodically, with traveling books from our county seat, 60 miles away. What a treat it was when the van arrived, with the latest volumes of the Hardy Boys.

My mother subscribed to book clubs and donated her books to the library when she had read them. She taught me to read at age 4 — what a treat to begin so early.

Let us never endure what happened in Germany during the book burning of Adolph Hitler.

WALTER BENDER

Coeur d’Alene