Elspeth Lorraine

This book made me cry. In a good way. I love love love the library. When I was little my family was poor and we were always at the library having an absolute blast and being treated like royalty by the fabulous librarians. They encouraged my brother to do a special train display in their case and I participated in all the reading challenges. I even won first place in the create your own book cover contest! I’m still proud of this. I think you can tell. This book is about the journey library books take when they leave the library. Caroline writes in charming rhyming couplets and the whole book is a cheerful ode to childhood reading. Books start out brand new with crisp pages. When they are in a child’s hand maybe a cup of cocoa leaves a ring… or splashes from the bathtub wrinkle the pages … or a dog takes a small bite and on and on. There are so many journeys a book can take. One book comforts a boy in the hospital, a father and son read a book on a camping trip and many more examples of all the ways we enjoy our beloved books. 

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Bits and Pieces: Golly I adored the library illustrations. Statues of cats, places to climb, big bright windows etc… John must have painted his dream library. Or mine. 

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Not Sure About: Pretty sure a librarian would go nuts reading this book. Like literally insane and scream, “Why is this happening to this book ahhhh! Stop it!” and then maybe grab the book and run away and never let a child touch a book again. So this book is for kids and kids alone. Let this be a warning to my myriad of nieces, nephews, and godchildren… if you take one of my books on a sticky or wet journey I’ll… well, I don’t know what I’ll do. But don't for lord’s sake! 

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Favorite Part: Each page talked about one of the journeys the book took and we would see the element on the actual page! On the campground page we saw a splatter of marshmallow, a crinkled page from dried bath water, tape putting a page back together from the dog bite etc… This was genius. 

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