Kerry Clare

An interview with local author, Kerry Clare, for the Lillian H. Smith Story Project.

Clare, Kerry

Wong, Christina

MP3

August 5, 2015

Downtown (Toronto, Ont.)

Kensington-Chinatown (Toronto, Ont.)

Wong, Christina

Wong, Christina

Clare, Kerry

Lillian H. Smith Branch

00:00 Speaker 1: I live in Harbord Village, and I've lived there for almost 10 years. I have two daughters who are six and two, and they were what brought me to Lillian Smith. And I read all the time, and I'm a writer as well. So it's natural that I would feel very connected with this place. But yeah, it was my kids that brought me here. When my daughter was little we lived close to Spadina Road Library, and Mariella Bertelli was the librarian there. And she's a story teller who was friends with Joan Bodger. And so she did the baby program that saved my life, 'cause I hated having a baby. I was very unhappy. And so, the saving grace in my life was going to Spadina Road Library, and the friendly faces, and people to talk to. And it made me learn how to be a mother by playing those games and songs and...

00:57 Speaker 2: Those games are great.

00:57 S1: Oh, it's so important. I mean, it didn't come naturally to me. So that group, the baby group there, was amazing. And then my daughter turned 18 months old, and she was too big for it, and she kept running away.

[chuckle]

01:09 S1: She didn't wanna sit in baby circle and clap hands. So, Mariella said that I should start going to the toddler program at Lillian Smith. And she said, "My friend, Joanne Schwartz, does the program there." And I said, "Oh Joanne Schwartz, okay." And then I met Joanne Schwartz. And if I thought Mariella Bertelli was really great, I mean, Joanne Schwartz is... I've been spoiled for librarians.

01:30 S2: She's amazing.

01:32 S1: She is incredible.

01:33 S2: Were you... Did you ever meet Theo?

01:35 S1: Theo is a legend, who I've heard about. She'd retired...

01:39 S2: Oh no.

01:40 S1: Just then. So, Theo and I passed by her. But she's a similar... And she's friends with... They're all... Mariella is friends with Theo as well.

[chuckle]

01:48 S1: And other... My friends with older children have told me about Theo. Like they've never been able to quite put it into words, it's just...

01:56 S2: Theo is amazing.

01:57 S1: Yes.

01:57 S2: I think her and Joanne...

02:00 S1: But Joanne was a worthy replacement.

02:01 S2: Yes.

02:02 S1: But I do worry that I can't really go to baby programs anymore, 'cause once you've heard Joanne, I mean, how... How do you top that?

02:10 S2: How do you beat that?

02:11 S1: She was amazing. And the greatest thing about her, is that she talks to children like they're people. She is very smart and funny, and does not patronize them. She doesn't talk to children any differently than she talks to adults, and I love that. And I think children appreciate being respected that way. But she was fantastic. And so, right away I loved it here. Plus, I discovered the museum upstairs, and the exhibit at the Osborne Collection, which we always go to see, the new ones, and my children love playing with the pop-up books, and the little doll house, and the tiny book.

02:48 S1: It's just like it's a... It's not... This isn't an ordinary building. And I love that my children take for granted that this is just a place in their lives. I think their world is so much more magical, because they walk in the doors, past those griffins, and we discover the secret animals hidden there. The day I discovered that there's the owl on the west side of the building, facing College street. And I think that's actually a really interesting metaphor for a library. Like you're never done reading. You never know everything. And I think the building is really interesting that way. And they had the toddler program in the basement then, which I really appreciated, 'cause the doors shut, so my daughter couldn't run away, and she loved the stars on the door, and when they would sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, she would get up and run to the door.

03:46 S1: And the very first day we did Toddler Time, I remember, she was 18 months old, and they played a game with bean bags, the legendary bean bag song, and then at the end they had to put their bean bags back in the box, and she went hysteric, 'cause she didn't wanna give it back. She'd never really been part of school, or a group before. But she learned how to do it. And it was really funny that through... And really poignant, that through the library programs I was seeing her grow. And I remember when she was three, before she started going to pre-school, it was like our last Toddler Time, she put her bean bag away. She knew exactly what to do, like it's helping her turn into a person who gets along with groups. Plus the stories that Joanne read...

04:28 S2: And just the way she read them.

04:30 S1: I know. And I'm pretty good at reading stories, but I catch Joanne's inflections, like she's so influenced me that I kind of have a Joanne voice that I put on when I read picture books.

[chuckle]

04:42 S1: Yeah. And she doesn't... Like she never used funny voices. She didn't pander, but she had this expression of wonder that she could convey when she reads, and I love that. I copy that from her. I stole that from Joanne. Joanne made me what I am.

[chuckle]

05:01 S2: She'd love to hear that.

05:02 S1: Oh, she's the best.

05:03 S2: She is.

05:04 S1: So, yes. And then my younger daughter comes here. She's two. And I find second children don't quite get the same atten... They're too busy being hauled to kindergarten, I'm not so bored and aimless as I was when I had one child.

[chuckle]

05:19 S1: I live in the world now. So, we haven't been as often, but we still come to the Toddler Time.

05:25 S2: Oh nice.

05:26 S1: That Jen does now. And so, this is just... My children feel so at home here, and we've made friends...

05:33 S2: Oh, that's always nice.

05:34 S1: In the groups we've done here, and we always get our books here, because I love that it has the Boys and Girls House collection, which means there are vintage picture books that are out of print, you'd never get anywhere else. And it's amazing that they can circulate.

05:50 S2: Yeah the [05:50] ____.

05:50 S1: But even in the circulating collection, there are all kinds of books from the '60s that we wouldn't have access to. Newer libraries don't have them.

06:04 S2: So you said you still come here now?

06:05 S1: Yeah. It's summer so we've been, my six-year-old and I have been coming to Toddler Time with the two-year-old and she liked, my big girl like her name is Harriet and she likes it 'cause she gets to be grown up. She's six so she's very mature.

06:19 S2: Big at that age already.

06:22 S1: Yeah.

06:22 S2: It's true.

06:22 S1: The library has always been really important and I love... We come... Now that she's bigger we don't have the free time so we don't come as often but I usually sign out about 25 books every time I do. I broke my stroller. My first stroller we broke it because we put too many library books in the bottom.

06:41 S2: You need a cart.

06:42 S1: Yeah and there's a book, it's by an author called Jo Ellen Bogart and illustrated by Barbara Reid. It's called Gifts and at the very end of the book there's a picture of a little girl in a stroller and there's library books on the undercarriage and my little girl used to look at that and go, "Oh no," because she thought that it was going to break, too, but they didn't have 25 I think. That's the difference, so yes, we have so many books that we broke our stroller but we bought a more expensive stroller that can hold...

07:09 S2: That can carry the weight.

07:10 S1: That can hold 25 books and so far it has. So we come about every three weeks and the collection is so big. Like I said we've been spoiled with those children's librarians, with a collection this huge.

07:25 S2: There's so much, too.

07:26 S1: 'Cause there never stops being something new to find. It's full of treasures like tiny little paperbacks that maybe haven't been circulated in a really long time and then...

07:34 S2: Yeah I know, and finding that...

07:36 S1: Yes.

07:36 S2: Or like finding the old cards and then these...

07:41 S1: And all the stamps of all the time it got taken out. I also think the librarians here do a really nice job of making displays. Downstairs I was looking at the city books display. Have you seen that one?

07:51 S2: Oh, yes, yes.

07:51 S1: And it has Joanne's books and Peter Sis and lots of really neat books about city living.

07:58 S2: Yeah, I didn't realize there were a lot of books called City or something starting with...

08:01 S1: So many. And Toronto, alphabet...

08:05 S2: Yes, I...

08:07 S1: So I love the displays and we get so many suggestions by the books that the library has put out.

08:08 S2: Oh that's so neat, so have you, do you find great treasures when you're at, on this level?

08:17 S1: Do you know I never come to this level?

08:18 S2: Really?

08:18 S1: No. Although there was a while I did 'cause my little one was a compulsive stair climber, so she would climbed stairs, and oh you know what, I also climbed the stairs. I was trying to give birth but my baby wouldn't be born so we were supposed to climb stairs.

08:34 S2: I didn't know that.

08:35 S1: So I went to Toronto reference library and we climbed up and down those stairs and we went to the Stairway of Wonders at the Rom and then one day we came here and we climbed the stairs. My husband, he's nice. He came, too. So we climbed the stairs and we climbed the stairs and then I had a C-section. The baby never came out properly, but... So that was the one time I was coming upstairs.

[laughter]

09:00 S2: [09:00] ____ on the other levels.

09:02 S1: Yeah. I don't get books out of the library that often for me.

09:06 S2: Only for your daughter.

09:08 S1: I buy books all the time.

09:11 S2: Well, that's good, too, actually?

09:11 S1: Yes. I think I used to when I had less money. Now that I have an abundance now, but I get lots of review copies. I have more books and I know what to do with, so yeah, I don't use the library for my own self as much. I did but it's mostly for the kids and because they read books so often, and some books are boring, so the fact that we can take back 25 books and get another 25 books it never... It suits everybody very well. It's all these little touches and you know the little animals are all on the facade of the building and the little things on the top. It is a new, clean, lovely looking building but it has attention to detail that... It's not a throw back either. They didn't build a fake library with big Greek columns or something, it's authentic in itself.

10:16 S2: That's a nice way of putting it.

10:16 S1: I also love the stairs down to the basement with the weird lamps.

10:18 S2: Oh yes, and that echo chamber.

10:20 S1: Yes.

10:22 S2: I love that part.

10:22 S1: It's so odd that they have those lamps that make it look like the castle basement.

10:28 S2: That's, I just found this out this year. It's supposed to look like a castle building which I didn't...

10:33 S1: Yes, but it does, doesn't it?

10:35 S2: Yeah.

10:36 S1: And my children love coming into the front and looking up.

10:39 S2: Oh, I know. People don't look up very often and it's just...

10:44 S1: But little kids do 'cause that's how they see the whole world.

10:47 S2: Yeah. Doing this project, too has made me look at the library differently a little bit or what it means to people so it's been really nice.

10:56 S1: It's full of stories, not just the books, and the Joan Bodger's story is just one of them. But every family, the families that come here it's an incredibly important part of their lives.

11:08 S2: Yeah. It is.

11:11 S1: And the children who feel at home here. They kinda all do the same things, too. The children always crawl under the staircase, there's that little spot. It's their place. They feel completely at home here and it's such an incredible place. What a privilege to be a person who belongs in a place like this and we all do. That's the most amazing thing.

11:30 S2: I know. That's what I like about here. I think it caters to everybody, so I think it's one of the few places left pretty much anywhere that everyone can just come in, so...

11:43 S1: Yeah, and sometimes that can be a little... To have a children's library, a lot of very interesting people come in and it can make for awkwardness, but at the same time that's the world. It's a useful education. Libraries are fascinating places, just intersections. And the kids' floor being on the main floor and so accessible was interesting. But I think it's great too that there's a place in the Orbit Jungle, that it's a place where the chairs are small and where little people can come in and sit down and fit perfectly. And I've seen my daughter grow up here. She's not very old but we always think she's the oldest she's ever been, then we get older. We're like, "What? She wasn't old at all." But I remember when she was three and leaving the toddler program it was so... She'd grown into someone entirely different and I guess the constant was that we always came and sang the same songs. And so I saw her change in that constant. It was...

12:46 S2: Oh, that must have been so nice.

12:48 S1: Yes, and sad. But that's sort of what having children's like. It's happy/sad.

[laughter]

12:56 S1: If they never change, that wouldn't be very good. But they keep doing it. It's terrible.

13:00 S2: They surprised you sometimes.

13:01 S1: Yeah. I also love the historical connections. I don't know much about Lillian H. Smith herself but I like the idea that there was the Boys and Girls Library, this is... It's still there.

13:15 S2: Yeah, it does.

13:17 S1: We go to the library often but it's not ordinary and when we ever have a staycation, we do special things. We go to galleries and we'll go to cool stuff but we'll always go to the library. Like, my husband if he's off work he'll come too, like it's a special thing for our family to do.

13:33 S2: It is so nice.