Module 10

Module 10:

Here Lies the Librarian

Summary:

 Here Lies the Librarian is about a young girl named PeeWee and her brother Jake trying to make it in a dead-end town in Indiana. Everything changes when four young librarians show up in the one horse town and revive the neighborhood library.

Citation:

Peck, R. (2006). Here lies the librarian. New York: Dial Books.

Impressions:

I enjoyed reading this book for the simple reason that it is about four strong female librarian characters. The book portrays women as strong and fantastic role models for Peewee (Eleanor) McGrath. It was a great story for especially young girls.

Review:

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. Stubborn, fearless, and loyal, 14-year-old Peewee (Eleanor) McGrath, who dresses like a boy, lives with her brother, Jake, in Indiana, "way out in the weeds." Together, they run a struggling garage, where Jake is building a racecar. It's 1914, and the electric self-starter has made automobiles more accessible to women. One day, four female drivers, library students all, arrive in a Stoddard-Dayton in need of repair; later, they return to reopen the town library. With these young women as role models, Peewee comes to realize that being female and being independent aren't mutually exclusive. Peck's one-liners, colorful physical comedy, and country dialect, prominent in most of his recent novels, are great as usual. And his characters, if not fully developed, are wonderfully quirky. Yet even with some exciting scenes of old-time dirt-track racing, the pace lags, and the story is choppy. Young fans of Danica Patrick, today's "Queen of the Road," may want to read this, but it will probably be librarians who'll have the most fun. Peck recounts an incident in an endnote in which one of the characters appears at the Indianapolis 500 with Janet Guthrie; unfortunately, there's not enough explanation to know whether or not it's all true. Stephanie Zvirin 2006. (Retrieved from http://catalog.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/FullRecord?databaseID=965&record=2&controlNumber=2007688)

Suggestions:

This book is a great example of historical fiction and such novels are always helpful during history lessons. I believe that historical can sometimes bring history alive.