One day when I dropped off my children at elementary school, I noticed that the Teacher Librarian had put a bunch of discarded books on a table in the hallway (also an excellent idea.) As I walked by, I saw an Astérix with the cover that had fallen off and I couldn’t resist picking it up as damaged as it was. I went home and had a cup of tea and was idly flipping through the pages when I noticed from a school stamp that the book had originally come from Cook Elementary, my husband’s old elementary school. When I got to the back page, I saw the old fashioned sign out system with the envelope and the card and the old card was still in it. I pulled out the card and my husband’s name was on it. He had been the first person to check out this book in 1984 at Cook Elementary and here I had randomly picked it up in the discard pile at my children’s elementary school about 30 years later. It now sits proudly in our living room bookshelf. That is the life cycle of a very important book in our family.