Dedrick Moone
- Dec 11, 2022
- 3 min read

A Christmas Gift to Remember

Liberty Public Library is about 30 minutes away from my hometown of Greensboro, NC. It's nestled away in a quaint and rural small town called Liberty, NC. It's a diverse community that's united in their efforts to promote growth, leadership, economic development, and family values while moving towards the future.

The library holds true to those values stated above under the leadership of Brenda Hornsby-Heindl. She and her staff are resolute in creating an atmosphere that's welcoming to diverse populations and communities. What I mean in that context, is that the shelves are replete with books that celebrate and promote body positivity, Spanish heritage, disabilities, foreign languages, etc. Their community programming follows that same approach. To that end, Brenda reached out to my daughter, Haelee and myself on November 17, 2022. She shared that the Liberty Public Library would be hosting a book fair and holiday party on December 10, 2022. She shared that they'd even have a black Santa and she wanted to extend an invite to us as local authors, library card holders, and members of their community to attend. You can learn more about their commitment to diversity in programming by going here.

Moving along, we graciously accepted their invite and we're so glad that we did. We were greeted by smiling faces and hugs from Brenda and her staff from the moment that we walked in the door. But not only that, we were greeted with treats, activities, music, and of course holiday cheer. The holiday cheer exuded from the youngest of us to the oldest of us. Haelee and I got so wrapped up in the festivities and touring the library shelves that we completely missed out on a few book sales. We won't apologize for it because the spirit of Christmas trumps sales. We made new Christmas memories by making snow globes, Christmas ornaments, writing letters to Santa, and of course visiting with Santa. Visiting with Santa was huge for us because we'd never met black Santa before. We thought that he might've been an urban legend of sorts. At any rate, we asked for things such as Pandora bracelets, vanities, more book sales, diamond tennis bracelets, more speaking engagements, and a backyard swimming pool. He promised that he'd deliver so long as we were good boys and girls. We'll anxiously be waiting by the Christmas tree in that regard.

We sipped on hot cocoa and munched on holiday treats (cookies, brownies, and cupcakes) as we visited the library shelves. We were amazed by the diversity therein. We literally wanted to check out all of the books and take them home for reading. We resultantly asked Brenda how many books we could check out simultaneously. We were flabbergasted when she answered with 40. We literally almost checked out an entire shelf but we decided to save some for others in limiting ourselves to five. We will be sharing our book haul with friends and family over the holiday break. Oh yeah and best of all, we found our books (The Rules of a Big Boss, The Unexpected Journey Volume I, and The Rules of a Little Boss) on the shelves while simultaneously adding more to the collection. What I'm saying in that regard is that Brenda purchased copies of Dear Daughter: A Love Letter, I Scream You Scream We All Learn About Ice Cream, and Brown Girls Have Superheroes Too so that she and her staff could add them to the libraries collection of books. That's a Christmas gift to remember by and large.

Thank you Brenda and staff for inviting us, supporting us, and showing not only us but the community at large a great time. May y'all have joyous remainder of the holiday season. And we can't wait to visit you guys again soon.