It's a summer in Helsinki. Hot days and warm light nights. Only couple of days and children can start their summer holidays. In Finland schools are closed for 10 weeks. Ten whole weeks. I loved those summer holidays so much when I was a child. I had two and a half month time just for reading.

Today I visited a library and I smelled the summer there. All those beautiful books wanted me to take them home with me. They wanted to go to beach with me, they wanted to go to travel, to swim, to visit festivals, to eat strawberries... They didn't want to hear anything about summerjobs or responsibilities. They just needed to get out of that library and feel the summer.

What could be better than just to read for 10 weeks? Sleep late, eat ice-cream, swim and lie in a garden reading a book after book. Right now that sounds like a heaven to me. Does that mean that I was living my childhood in heaven? Maybe. At least I'm extremely grateful that I have had those summers in my life. Now when I think of it I see that in some way those summers maybe thought me even more than a whole year in school. I didn't just read novels. I read biographies, travel stories, essays and books about philosophy and different religions. I studied and learnt and I loved it because I was able to do it on my own time and my own speed. And eating ice-cream in garden while doing it.

In a dream world schools would be exactly like that, and I don't mean ice-cream here. I strongly believe that after all we humans are just curious and eager to learn new things. We want to read and study, that's our nature and I really don't understand why do schools so often extinguish that desire? Why I had to have my summer holidays to feel excited and inspired about learning?

I don't know. People wiser than me propably know the answers. All I know is that when the summer comes to town libraries cry my name ever louder than usually. I hear all the books that want to be read. I hear how they wishper their secrets and promise to tell me all the right answers considering the universe. I can smell sunny days in garden and I can smell the books surrounding that happy young reader who can finally study in peace because she doesn't have to go to school.