Don’t steal books.
But would it be so bad if our children occasionally stole our books?
Their sticky and curious fingers carrying off new worlds back to their room.
Staying up half the night with a flashlight and only understanding half of it.
Of course, they could just ask.
But that would steal part of the joy.
And don’t forget: They will learn their love of books, by watching you.
Thus it was that in Salinas, in the great dark walnut bookcase with the glass doors, there were strange and wonderful things to be found. My parents never offered them, and the glass door obviously guarded them, and so I pilfered from that case. It was neither forbidden nor discouraged. I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.
-John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley In Search Of America
