I've been working at the children's library the last three days and looking out past a glass pane at the wonderland outside. You enter through a brown metal gate behind which are four larger than life rabbits who face each other attentively, and you too if you stand in their center. To the left of the rabbits is a white picket fence that makes a path to my door and behind the rabbits is a living room with only three walls and no roof, fully furnished with cinnamon colored couches and bookshelves. To the left of the living room and directly across from me is a flower shaped table where life-size Pooh bear and Peter Rabbit are sitting across from each other. Peter Rabbit leans back against a little two-story house with a tiny staircase tunnel that the children can climb up into a balcony that overlooks the entire landscape, including a pagoda in the southwest corner and a two story tree strung with red Chinese lanterns and with hollows kids can crawl into to read or play among the books and pillows. And to the right of everything is a glass wall that rises to the ceiling, a case for three stories of priceless children's books with cracked leather bindings, yellow pages, and gold lettered titles, all from places faraway and times long ago.

It's good to work here and look out at the beautiful things that creativity and money can make. When I was young, I would have loved to read in a place like this instead of an inner city apartment with the sound of sirens always blaring somewhere outside. But of course, the magic and adventure lies in the stories themselves. No library however fantastic can catch a ripple or spark of the Silver Sea or Weyrs of Pern that I spun in my childhood imagination years ago. I think I will reread those books someday if I get brave enough. But childhood wonder does not last forever. Sometimes the memory of a memory is worth keeping untouched. Unless you are reliving it with someone full of belief.