David Hill: The town where books and reading are seen as luxuries

This is about Rawiri, which of course is not his real name. Rawiri is 11 and lives in a pretty unsalubrious part of town. His father is a gang member; he and Rawiri's mother are stoned or absent a good deal of the time. There's also Rawiri's elder brother, who bullies him.

Over the last school holidays Rawiri started coming into the local library. It was a place where he could be safe from his brother. It was also a bright, mind-enhancing, kid-friendly place. None of those qualities is much in evidence at Rawiri's home.

The librarians noticed him wandering around the shelves, looking lost. One of them told him where the children's and young adults' sections were, in case he wasn't sure. Rawiri promptly fled.

But he came back a couple of days later, when it was raining and he presumably had nowhere else to go. By then the children's librarian, who liaises with local schools, had told the others about him. So one of the other librarians got crafty.

She asked Rawiri if he'd mind helping her to carry a pile of skateboarding magazines over to the children's section. Rawiri looked set to vanish again, but he took the magazines and followed her.

Did he skateboard? That must be so cool, the crafty librarian said. She'd tried it and was hopeless. Could she ask him a big favour? Would he be able to look through these magazines and choose the best photos for a display they were planning?

Rawiri did. He came in the next day. And the next. The librarians chatted to him about skateboarding, and about rugby league, since he was a Warriors fan. They showed him some rugby league books. Rawiri sat and read them.

On the sixth or so day, the crafty librarian asked if Rawiri would like to take some books home. He didn't belong to the library? No problem; they could enrol him.
But there was another problem. The town in which all this happened has a new mayor. This mayor had decided that library users should pay for each book they borrowed. It was only fair - after all, people paid to use the council-run recycling depot and swimming baths.

Such library charges would be a tax on knowledge, people said. Elitist nonsense, scoffed the mayor. They would be an obstacle to literacy. If people cared enough, they'd find the money for themselves and their children, said the mayor.

Charging for library books was just part of individuals taking responsibility for themselves. Wake up to the real, user-pays world.

Trouble was, as the school liaison librarian pointed out, Rawiri's parents didn't see things in that brave new way.

She could imagine what they'd do and say if Rawiri started asking them for money to take out library books.

Okay then, the librarians would pay for him themselves. And if the books got ripped up by Rawiri's parents or brother, they'd find a way round it. So this is a story with a happy ending, right?

Right, except for a couple of hiccups. The first is that there are dozens of Rawiris in that town alone. The librarians can't pay for them all.

The second hiccup - more of a belch, really - is that we still have local body leaders and members who know that they've been elected to save ratepayers' money, that books and reading are luxuries, and that people should get off their backsides and pay for their luxuries.

Just reassure me that none of those people got on to their local bodies by way of your vote.

* Tapu Misa returns next week.