- Is cabbage juice good for you?
- What is cystic ovary syndrome?
- Do you have any more picture books about fire trucks? He won’t read about anything but firetrucks.
- Is chemotherapy an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis?
- Do you have a book about condoms? I need to know who invented them.**
- How do I know what size bra to buy?
- How do you cure hams?
- Was Rachel Carson married to Kit Carson?
- How do you get to Gatesville, Texas?
- How do you make cherry pie?
- What did people eat in Victorian England?
- What do you call the 125th anniversary of the founding of a city?
- Is there a town called San Simon in Texas?
- Do you have any stories with voices?
- I need to know the names of some saints.
- Do I have to wear a hat to a Catholic christening?
- I need a list of scientists who’ve won the Nobel Prize.
- What does the Federal Reserve do?
- How many teeth does a giraffe have?
- How do you make a Sally Lunn cake?
- Where’s the book that was on that table the other day? It’s white.
***
*Some of the above might be outside the official realm of the reference question. But they’re close.
*No, dear freshman boy, in this little school library in this conservative little town in this conservative big state, I do not have a book about who invented the condom, and I’m trying very hard not to guffaw while I tell you this. (And when the little school library became a little public library, I didn’t have a book about it then, either. But I had books that came close.)
***
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Kathy Waller 