Central Children’s Room Memories: Veronica Schanoes

This past May, I earned my PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied contemporary feminist revisions of fairy tales and classical myths, and this September, I began as an Assistant Professor at Queens College-CUNY.  I was hired to fill a position in children’s literature.

Coming back to NYC was my dream–I grew up in the city, and didn’t leave until I went to graduate school.  I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a family that valued (and still values) reading and writing above almost everything else.  I never wanted for anything…but back in those days, we couldn’t just walk into a bookstore and buy ten books at a time.  Given that I was the kind of kid who read 10-20 books a week, that meant that the public library system was a necessity!  My mother took me to the library once a week, and we alternated between the Jefferson Market branch and the Donnell, for its children’s collection.  I never had trouble finding my favorite books to read again or finding new books.  Actually, what I had trouble with was finding too many books!  My mother’s rule was that if I checked out more than six books, I had to carry them home myself…and I always ended up carrying my books home myself.  I vividly remember taking the F from 53rd St. to 2nd Ave. carrying a tote back that was just packed with hardcover children’s books of all kinds, from classics of children’s fantasy to collections of Peanuts cartoons to my favorite book of manners; the bag cut into my shoulder and I staggered around in a melodramatic manner trying to get my mother to carry the bag for me and I whined and whined and whined about how heavy it was–but it never once occurred to me to check out fewer books.  And I always had finished my stack by the next week.

The Donnell was the only library open on Sundays; its furniture was my size (I can still picture those dark pink padded chairs); I could happily spend hours inching my way among its rows and rows of bookshelves (none of them out of my childhood reach!) or sitting down on the floor wherever I happened to be to read the books I’d piled up.  When I realized that my very own library was  the home of the original Winnie the Pooh and his friends, I wasn’t the least surprised–after all, where else would they be other than the Donnell?

Later on, when I was a teenager, I was very unhappy.  I didn’t have an easy time.  But I still went often to the Donnell Library after school to read science fiction and fantasy and to pore over Pennie Smith’s The Clash: Before and After, her brilliant book of photos of the punk band that saved my life.

One final memory: when I was around eight years old, my mother took me to some special exhibit at the MoMA.  I don’t remember what it was, because we didn’t get in.  We waited and waited and waited and I got progressively less patient and more fidgety.  Finally we got off the line and ate lunch and went to a little gift shop where I found a nutcracker that looked to me exactly like the one in the ballet.  We went back to stand on line again but I kept casting wistful looks across the street at the Donnell until my mother looked at me and said "Would you rather just go to the library?"  "YES!" I shouted.  On our way home, carrying the tote bag stuffed with books, I looked up at my mother and said "Mommy, this has been the best day ever."  "The best day ever?" she said, "a toy and the Donnell?"  "Yes," I said happily, "a toy and the Donnell."