In 1939, Rose McGee’s Papa leaves, and Momma moves the family from Amarillo, Texas to the Louisiana bayou where she grew up. When they arrive, Momma forces Rose to lie about her age to get a job driving the bookmobile. Rose would rather go to school, but the family needs the money. Seventeen years later, Rose’s son Merle Henry prefers trapping, but sees the use in some books. In the ’70s, his daughter Annabeth grows from reading fairytales to classics, and in 2004 her son Kyle takes a job at the library and discovers that he doesn’t hate reading. As lovely as it may be, Holt’s collection of stories connected by ties familial and literary doesn’t have the time to flesh out most of its characters. Rose, who begins by telling her story, never comes back to life even as her dream of writing a book of her own comes to fruition in the final pages. None of the other characters are allowed to tell their own stories, and they come away feeling like place-holders on the family tree. Still, for its sense of family history, this is worth a spot in large collections, especially, of course, in Louisiana. (Fiction. 10-14)
