In Biblioville, everybody reads

In Biblioville, everybody is a reader. And, no wonder. They've got 13 libraries to choose from and a retired library director checking out the books.

Why, there's Santa, checking his book of “Good Boys and Girls.”

A bobsled full of kids, each staring at a book.

And, what about that guy on a bicycle hawking a newspaper? He rides past a Biblioville sign that says, “Where all the women read Charles Dickens, all the men read Clement Clarke Moore, and all the children eagerly await the Bookmobile.”

“Yes,” says John Christenson, the bespectacled, white-bearded creator of this miniature village. “Each one of them has to have a book in their hand.”

You wouldn't expect anything different from John, 73, who grew up in Wisconsin reading and spent his entire life working with books. He and his wife, Ann, moved to North Liberty, then Iowa City, to be close to two children, Kate Dale, and Nat Christenson who, you guessed it, work at the Coralville Public Library.

That's why John's collection of scale model libraries, usually set up at home around Christmas, is displayed at the Coralville library through the new year.

“This is the first time I've had a public display,” John says. “I'm happy to have the opportunity.”

During his career, which took him from Oshkosh, Wisc., to Madison, to Indiana, Connecticut, Florida and Minnesota, John has served 48 libraries. But he had to count them up.

“Wow,” he says. “That's funny.”

Funny because I suggested he have the same number in his collection, which began in 1994 with the gift of a red brick, green roofed Carnegie-like library from daughter, Kate, a resource librarian in Coralville.

“I put it on the buffet by our dining room table,” he says, “then I started collecting ...”

A cat reading a book came from San Francisco, a snowman with a book from New Orleans. Most of the libraries and figures were purchased in the Mankato, Minn., area where John served his last stint - 27 years guiding a regional library system.

Since moving to Iowa, John has put his administrative experience (he was also mayor of Good Thunder, Minn., for 14 years) to good use. He's currently president of the Johnson County Historical Preservation Board and is working for restoration of North Liberty's historic Ranshaw house into a museum/welcome center.

Whether you're talking fact or fiction, real houses or Biblioville, John knows you can never read too much.