Karrinyup Public Library

My girlfriend wants to be a children’s picture book illustrator and so we have been spending quite a bit of time at the public library looking through the children’s picture book section. We must look pretty strange as we do so, especially because we both have rather different opinions about what constitutes a good picture book. Two grown adults arguing over the relative merits of Mem Fox and Werner Holzwarth make for a strange sight at the best of times, let alone when they’re in a small room littered with plastic toys and are towering over an unfortunate three-​year-​old who doesn’t know what the hell is going on. (Actually, I tell a lie. I’m sure we both prefer Possum Magic to that stupid book about the mole with excrement on his head.)
This room littered with plastic toys is separate from the rest of the library, which is small but well-​appointed and clean. There’s the usual display of new books and a stack of this and last week’s newspapers and computers for locals to come in and use at their leisure to check their e-​mail or print something off. Sharing a carpark with the Karrinyup Shopping Centre, the library is in an excellent location, within easy walking distance of any number of banks and other essential services. It thus serves as an important community hub as much as a site for inappropriate domestic squabbles.