Library borrower finds single word cut out of book, librarians search for answers

Humans don't always treat books with the respect they deserve. Some of us are spine-benders, while others are page-folders. But, this one is something we've not seen before.

A library in Ayer, Massachusetts, posted that one of its borrowers returned a book to a partner library with a note saying that "a single word was cut out of page 51."

Per the Facebook post, the librarian assumed that page 51 of the book had been ripped. But, what they found instead ensnared their curiosity—and that of the library's patrons.

"Lo and behold, there it was. A perfectly neat cut, with care taken not to damage any other pages. And one word missing," wrote the librarian in a Facebook post. "You could feel the curiosity coursing through the Children's Room. Who would do something like this, why would someone hurt a perfectly innocent library book."

But, damage aside, the librarian had other concerns.

"Most importantly, WHAT IS THE MISSING WORD?!?!"

Unable to "take it" any longer, library staff contacted a partner library in nearby Holden, which just so happened to have a "fully intact copy" on its shelves.

"With some help from an equally excited and curious librarian, we learned the truth," reads the post. "'Excellent.' The missing word is excellent. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't that."

Meanwhile, one library borrower on Facebook were busy playing a game of fill-in-the-blank.

"It's not a word that's missing. it's an entire statement. it's 'It's not easy, being green.' (haha, as I burst into Kermit's song)," wrote Facebook user Young-Tae Kim.

It's not quite understood why someone would go to the bother of chopping one single word out of a book.

I think we prefer Kermit's song.