Neil Gaiman is one of our favorite authors. The mind behind The Sandman, American Gods, Coraline, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (with Terry Pratchett), and so many more fantastical books is a fierce supporter of libraries. So much so that he recently donated $25,000 to the Woodstock (N.Y.) Library. The funds will go towards a children’s reading circle, a spot for storytimes and group activities at the library’s new location when it opens next year.
Gaiman, a Woodstock resident, is very excited about the town's new library. As he told us last summer:
“I spent this morning being shown around the building that is going to become the new Woodstock (N.Y.) town library. And it's going to become this amazing community hub. I walked out so enthusiastic at the idea of this place that will be the dream of a library. It'll be amazing. I love the fact that the library board is behind it. They're supporting it, and they support their librarians. I'm looking forward to being a part of this.”
Thanks for all that you do for libraries and the world, Neil Gaiman!
Did you know that Neil Gaiman is on an ALA Celebrity READ poster? He is, indeed, holding Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Why did he choose this book?
“I wanted a book that I could link everything, from being a kid to now,” he said. “It was a book that I love wholeheartedly now and loved then. The Wind in the Willows is a masterwork. It's beautifully written. It's beautifully thought out. It contains magic on a level that I find fascinating because—apart from the fact that you have animals who are both animal-sized and somehow human-sized doing things that human beings do—there is nothing fantastical about it. And yet, in the middle of the book, in a chapter called ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’—which often gets omitted now, which makes me sad—the great god Pan shows up. And Pan is there for the animals as kind of a nature god who's rescued a lost baby otter. If there was ever a chapter in a book that sort of puts you in touch with the luminous, it's that chapter.”
You can find the poster in the ALA Store.
Photo: nrkbeta, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
