Celebrating Library Week, and Poetry Month, with a book that gave me hope

" I discovered that one could write one's own story, 

which is something that very few people even consider."

In 1998 I built the first rendition of Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews, and I did it myself, so you can imagine what it looked like! Back then I had no idea what TTLG would become in the years ahead. By 1999 I had got to know quite a few publicists in the publishing houses, and was getting review copies on a regular basis. One of the books I received was The Library, which was created by a husband and wife team. I fell in love with David Small's art and I sought out every book he had worked on. 

This Caldecott Honor book had a profound effect on me; I discovered that I was not the only book-mad person in the world. Here was a story about a real person who filled her house with books. I was not alone in my madness! I also saw how someone turned their passion into something that gave them, and so many other people, joy. I discovered that one could write one's own story, which is something that very few people even consider. If the lady in the story could do what she did with her life, why, I could do something that was untraditional too. 

The story is written in verse, so it is perfect title for Poetry Month.   

The Library

Sarah Stewart

Illustrated David Small 

Picture Book

For ages 5 to 8

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, 978-0374443948

From the time when she was a very little girl indeed Elizabeth Brown loved books. She had no interest in dolls or in playing games. All she wanted to do was to read, and read, and read. This state of affairs did not change as she grew up. As more and more books came into her home, her collection of books got bigger and bigger and bigger until it was so enormous that the front door of her house was blocked by piles of books. Even worse was the fact that Elizabeth no longer had room for "one more" book.

   Then Elizabeth Brown found a solution to her problem, a solution that would make it possible for her to go on buying books, a solution that would also benefit the entire community.

   This wonderful story with its spare rhyming text and its emotive watercolor washed paintings, is a joy to read. The dedication in the front of the book tells us that the Elizabeth Brown in the story was in fact a real person who loved books and who was a good friend of the author and illustrator.

Celebrating Library week with Lee Bennett Hopkins

 

From School People edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins 

This week we are celebrating libraries and the wonderful people who work in them. April is also poetry month, so today I am bringing you a book of poetry that just happens to be all about libraries, librarians, and the people who discover that libraries truly are magical places. 

The late and much loved children’s writer and educator Lee Bennett Hopkins was a devoted promoter of poetry for children. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and lived with his mother and siblings in a low-income housing project in Newark, New Jersey, after his parents divorced. Lee attended Kean University and earned an MS from Bank Street College of Education. His interest in poetry as an educational tool in the classroom led to his work as a classroom resource coordinator; he also worked as an editor at Scholastic before becoming a full-time writer and editor of anthologies. Leecompiled more than 100 anthologies of poetry for children.

Lee established the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the Lee Bennett Hopkins/International Reading Association Promising Poetry Award to recognize outstanding writing for children.

Jumping Off Library Shelves 

Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Illustrated by Janet Manning 

Poetry Picture Book

For ages 5 to 7

Boyds Mills Press, 2015, 978-1590789247

A library is a special place. Some people think it is ‘just’ a repository for books, a storage place perhaps, but they are wrong. Thanks to the books in a library, people can find information, they can travel to distant lands, and have grand adventures. They can take a break from the world, and spend some quiet time immersed in wonderful words.

   For this marvelous salute to libraries, Lee Bennet Hopkins has brought together poems written by a wonderful selection of poets. On the pages of this book we will meet children for whom their library is a special place. With their library cards in hand - the card that is “more powerful” than a cell phone, a TV remote, or a hundred apps - children find treasures that invite them “to explore” and “to dream.”

   To help young readers in their search for a good read, there is the librarian who, by some magical ability, is always able to help a child find “the perfect book.” Somehow the librarian is able to read a child, like words on a page, and know what he or she needs.

   The library is also a place where you will find storytellers who are able to make “words / leap from pages,” as they read out loud. With the storyteller for company, children make friends with a frog and toad, and they can “walk / down a / yellow brick road.” During their storytimes they are able to believe in “once-upon-a-time” and “happily ever after.”

   There is something for everyone in a library. On the shelves there are dictionaries, books of poetry, fairy tales and so much more. And when night falls, and all the people have left the library, other little beings come out to partake of the library’s treasures.

   This wonderful collection of poems take us into the world of libraries. We enter the library as “Morning pours spoons of sun” onto the shelves, and then leave when “night falls / outside / a / window.” As we close the book we are left with a comfortable feeling, and a yearning to visit our local library where book wonders await us.