Books for Babies

By Anne Chudobiak


I don’t like my local library. They have books in lots of different languages, which translates into not much of anything. And then there’s the nefarious “Books for Babies” plan. They encourage parents to bring in their babies and then get upset when these babies get up and walk. “Hey, we said babies, not toddlers. Keep that babbling down.”

For a few years, I wasn’t reading much of anything beyond parenting books (How to Talk..., Raising Your Spirited Child, Siblings without Rivalry), just the basic reading so that I could brave the children’s library without getting into too much trouble. I even tried to donate a parenting manual, but the librarian said that donations were unheard of, impossible. At the time I was upset. Not now. I’m done with manuals.

I’m too behind in the rest of my reading. Do you know that until last year I’d never even heard of Cormac McCarthy? And while we’re being honest, I still haven’t read him.

I finally gave in and got myself a Chapters membership card.

“Do you often buy this many books?” the cashier asked, looking at my pile (Krista Bridge; Short Stuff; and Lust for Life).

“No,” I said. “Never.”

But I was back the next month (Amy Hempel, Elisabeth Harvor, Sheila Heti).

“How much did I save today?” I asked at the cash register.

“Dammit,” I thought when I got home, “I forgot Chekov. I always forget him.”

And that wasn’t the only problem. There was the question of shelf space. It was time for another cull.

“Is this yours?” I asked my husband, holding up Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and the Valley, a book neither of us had heard of, let alone read. Does anyone else have books like that on their shelves?

The Mountain and the Valley is “a series of illuminations,” “a rural idyll,” “a psychological novel,” part of the canon and a total waste of time. I don’t know where I stand. Let’s just say it’s on my list, beside McCarthy.

The intro, by Claude Bissell, Buckler’s biographer, friend and biggest fan, places the novel in context, a time when Philip Child (winner, if you’re wondering, of the 1950 Governor-General’s award) and serial-writer Mazo de la Roche were the Establishment and Robertson Davies and Mordecai, encroachers, whose work, although exciting at times, paled in comparison with W.O. Mitchell’s Who has Seen the Wind.

I love Mitchell, especially the one about the cranky professor who’s mauled by a bear, but even I can see that Bissell was a critic, not a prophet. Who can predict what will be remembered? Wikipedia, for instance, has a lot more to say about Bissell than it does about Buckler, but you never know, that could change, maybe when my little one goes down for his nap, which should be soon. He’s looking kind of tired.

We were out early this morning, the park, where a lady, modestly dressed--“A Jehovah’s witness?” I thought--laid out a blanket, inviting us to join her.

“I brought books,” she said. I recognized one of them. Toupie. We have it at home. That’s the book they give you when you get your baby a library card.

Montreal libraries. Outreach program.

“What?” she said. “You’re leaving? Already?”