View this post on Instagram A post shared by Amy Hand (@miss_amy_h)
A former Maine resident returned to the town she used to call home so she could return a library book that had been due back 46 years earlier.
Diana Edwards, a former resident of Camden, Maine, said she was packing up her books for a move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire when she came across a copy of Bunches and Bunches of Bunnies, written by Louise Mathews and illustrated by Jeni Bassett.
The book had been checked out from the Camden Public Library and had a due date of Aug. 10, 1979.
“My children and I lived on Pearl Street from the mid-1970s to around 1984 when we moved to Vermont. Those bunnies have been traveling with me since then,” Edwards told the Midcoast Villager newspaper.
Amy Hand, the library’s director of youth services, recounted the story of the book’s return in an Instagram video. She said the book will be used for future story time sessions.
Library officials said the facility no longer has late fees, but even when they were still enforced, the fines were capped at $5. They said the maximum Edwards would have been asked to pay under the old policy would have been the cost of replacing the tome. Edwards said she decided to donate an undisclosed sum to the library in gratitude for the understanding and good cheer of the librarians she spoke with.
