We’d been enveloped in various sidebar conversations when I took a good look around her small classroom: floor to ceiling books, most of them from her own collection. Many were stacked two or three deep on narrow shelves, some piled on top of one another, lining every availible space in the room.

It made the room feel so small and cramped; paradoxically, it was the widest room in the school, after the library.

So much possibility and expantion blew through that room in the form of dried tree pulp and glue!

“So, most of these books are yours?” I asked apprehensively.

“Yes indeed, many I’ve bought over the years through the local book sale in the summer.”

The ultimate question surfaced on my tongue: “Have you read all of them?”

My English teacher gave me a knowing smile. “What do you think?” she asked.