LETTERS TO THE UNDERDOG REGARDING THE TWO SECOND GRADERS TRYING TO SAVE THEIR LIBRARIAN AT TAPER AVENUE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN SAN PEDRO; SEE THE UNDERDOGFORKIDS EARLIER POSTING OF STORY

Letters to the Underdogforkids:

Dear Underdogforkids:

Hancock Park School's Library Aide is in the same position. She can't afford to only work three hours, even if the Booster Club funds that, because she and her husband and college-age son need benefits. Her husband is self-employed, and they rely on the LAUSD health and welfare benefits. And they can't really afford COBRA, because the three hours of work would just be eaten up by those payments.

And the District also doesn't allow aides to work two three hour positions at different locations, because that would mean benefits eligibility would kick in.

Teresa Feldman

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Dear Underdogforkids:

As others have said it, far better than I am capable of, let their comments speak for me:

“Libraries: The medicine chest of the soul.” ~Library at Thebes, inscription over the door

“I cannot live without books.” --Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, June 1815

“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life.” --Henry Ward Beecher

“The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“The richest person in the world - in fact all the riches in the world - couldn't provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library.“ ~Malcolm Forbes

“Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.” ~Lady Bird Johnson

“The best of my education has come from the public library... my tuition fee is a bus fare and once in a while, five cents a day for an overdue book. You don't need to know very much to start with, if you know the way to the public library.” ~Lesley Conger

“A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.” ~Jo Godwin

“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.” ~Andrew Carnegie

--MIKE BENNETT