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HERE LIES THE LIBRARIAN

Name: HERE LIES THE LIBRARIAN
Author: Richard Peck
ISBN: 0-8037-3080-2

by Richard Peck ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006

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“Who’d want to be in the pit crew when you could be in the race?” asks Irene Ridpath, the new librarian at14-year-old Eleanor McGrath’s school. It’s 1914 in the unincorporated Hazelrigg Settlement in Hendricks County, Ind., and feisty Irene and three other Library Science students from Butler University have come to town to fill the vacancy left when the elderly former librarian Electra Dietz died, heaven having stamped her OVERDUE. The young ladies plan to expand the 225-book collection, add shelving, a Photostat machine, lighting and subscriptions to all major magazines. And if the library is remade, so is Eleanor, transformed, with Irene’s help, from grease monkey to young woman with a sense of herself in the world, who wins the first ten-mile stock car race in Hendricks County history. As always, Peck writes with humor and affection about times past, elders and growing up strong. This ode to librarians is a fine companion to Peck’s ode to schoolteachers, The Teacher’s Funeral (2004). (Fiction. 10+)

Pub Date: April 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-8037-3080-2

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST MAN
by Richard Peck

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MOUSE WITH THE QUESTION MARK TAIL
by Richard Peck ; illustrated by Kelly Murphy

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRETS AT SEA
by Richard Peck illustrated by Kelly Murphy

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THE SEVENTH MOST IMPORTANT THING

by Shelley Pearsall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2015

Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

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Traumatized by his father’s recent death, a boy throws a brick at an old man who collects junk in his neighborhood and winds up on probation working for him.

Pearsall bases the book on a famed real work of folk art, the Throne of the Third Heaven, by James Hampton, a janitor who built his work in a garage in Washington, D.C., from bits of light bulbs, foil, mirrors, wood, bottles, coffee cans, and cardboard—the titular seven most important things. In late 1963, 13-year-old Arthur finds himself looking for junk for Mr. Hampton, who needs help with his artistic masterpiece, begun during World War II. The book focuses on redemption rather than art, as Hampton forgives the fictional Arthur for his crime, getting the boy to participate in his work at first reluctantly, later with love. Arthur struggles with his anger over his father’s death and his mother’s new boyfriend. Readers watch as Arthur transfers much of his love for his father to Mr. Hampton and accepts responsibility for saving the art when it becomes endangered. Written in a homespun style that reflects the simple components of the artwork, the story guides readers along with Arthur to an understanding of the most important things in life.

Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)