The Mysterious Librarian

Written by Dominique Demers

Translated by Sander Berg

Illustrated by Tony Ross

Alma Junior (Alma Books/Bloomsbury)

978-1-84688-415-3

79 pp.

Ages 6-9

June 2017

Reading this translation of Dominique Demers' original La Mystérieuse Bibliothécaire (Québec Amérique, 1994) is like being transported to another time and place, one in which children are children, not junior adults, and books are vehicles of imaginative transport.  There are no cell phones or e-book readers or computers or any of the technology that makes life faster and connections immediate.  It's a time when a woman can appear out of nowhere and become The Mysterious Librarian of the small town of Saint-Anatole and no one can start researching her on the internet.  Simpler, easier times.

When Miss Charlotte appears at the office of Mayor Peevish to apply for a position of librarian, a position unfilled for 30 years, he hires her.  Miss Charlotte "who was very tall and very skinny and seemed to come out of nowhere ... wearing a massive hat and a long blue dress, which was quite elegant, although it had seen better days" (pg. 3) takes her position very seriously, cleaning the broom-closet of a library, taking an inventory of the books and resident spiders and mice (who become pets) and requesting additional funds for the purchase of new books, to replace those she deemed "as disgusting as old, overcooked broccoli." (pg. 16)

She imagined fabulous books, books that make you laugh, cry, shiver and dance.  Books that take you to the far-flung corners of the earth.  Books that tickle your brain, touch your heart and lift your spirits. (pg. 15)

Leo, a boy whose mother owns the pet store, meets Miss Charlotte when she comes in for spider and mouse food, and suspects she is the odd woman his friend Marie had told him about at summer camp (see the first book in the series, The New Teacher, 2016).  Intrigued, he visits Miss Charlotte at the library, fortuitously as he finds her seemingly unconscious on the floor of the library.  Leo realizes that she is alive but cannot be roused because she has become so involved in the book that she has been sucked in.  Reading aloud helps bring her back.

Unconventional as she is, Miss Charlotte wants to bring readers to the books, so she encourages the children at the school to visit the library.  Although they also witness Miss Charlotte in her sucked-into-a-book state, the library becomes a reading home to the children who take on the tasks of feeding a menagerie of animals, bringing in tents and blankets and other comforts, and helping with miscellaneous library chores.  But when Miss Charlotte cannot be roused from her reading of Beauty and the Beast, the children, led by Leo, find the means to help her back.

Dominique Demers is an award-winning Quebec author of picture books, chapter books, young adult and adult books, having written well over fifty books.  Because they are primarily French-language books, I have not had the opportunity to review any on CanLit for LittleCanadians so I am delighted to review this translation of The Mysterious Librarian here.  The Mysterious Librarian is charming and innocent and makes me long for libraries in which reading was everything.  We have gone so far into making libraries places of entertainment, with makerspaces and more, that the library and librarian of The Mysterious Librarian are refreshing and inviting, though many would say old-fashioned.  Maybe Miss Charlotte and her library are out of fashion but I like to think of them as classic, elegant and exemplary.  Having Tony Ross, who has illustrated books penned by Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren as well as the Horrid Harry, Amber Brown and Dr. Xargle series, is brilliant.  There's that lightness and gentility of line that conveys the essence of Miss Charlotte and her mission to encourage reading.

From The Mysterious Librarian 

by Dominique Demers 

illus. by Tony Ross

Miss Charlotte would love to have The Mysterious Librarian in her library for the children.  Your children can read The Mysterious Librarian themselves but, if you do read it aloud to them–and I encourage teachers and parents to do so–try not to laugh too much when the bully Martin wants a book with bare bottoms in it (and gets a book about a pig) and try not to get sucked in, unless you have someone nearby to get you out.

A Tinfoil Sky

by Cyndi Sand-Eveland

Tundra Books

 978-1-77049-277-6

276 pp.

Ages 9-12

2012

"...everyone needs a little magic in their lives; it gives them hope." (pg. 201)

Melody Tully, twelve, needs a little magic in her life because hopefulness is definitely in shortage.  In the past four years, she and her mom Cecily have moved eleven times, and now Cecily has them running out on her drug dealer boyfriend Craig and dragging them to Cecily's mother's apartment.  But, even though Mel lived with her grandparents for the first four years of her life, Gladys doesn't welcome them into her apartment with its tinfoil-covered windows.  In fact, she yells at them through the door about Cecily's stealing, alcoholism and drug use.  So Cecily and Mel end up living out of their car, both singing on the street for money and visiting the soup kitchen.  When Cecily is arrested for shoplifting and sentenced to thirty days, Rose, a woman who works at the soup kitchen, helps find Mel and take her to stay at Gladys' until Cecily gets out.

Gladys is a bitter woman, rarely showing any kindness to Mel.  She even asks Mel to stay outside the apartment when she's not there, only giving Mel one key for her multi-locked door.  Mel just tries to stay out of Gladys' way, returning the key.  But Mel has no problems filling her days, spending hours at the public library and occasionally visiting with Ed Frohberger at his store to learn what she can of her late grandfather Tux.  But as she counts down the days until her mother's release from jail, Mel begins to establish her own life: visiting the library almost daily; making friends with the librarian Marilyn and Marilyn's son Paul; getting a part-time job at the library; talking to Mr. Frohberger; visiting the soup kitchen and Fearless, the kitten, who lives there; and enjoying the stability of her daily routines.  So, while Cecily enjoys change, Mel begins to appreciate the normalcy of her new situation, regardless of how temporary.

While Cecily seems to be the biggest impediment to their relationship with Gladys, without making any grandiose gestures, just trying to be inconspicuous and herself, Mel starts to see Gladys softening little by little.  The returned key, a white blouse abandoned at the dry cleaners, declining money Mel offers to repay what Cecily had stolen - Gladys begins to recall being a grandmother to her granddaughter, eventually removing the tinfoil from the windows and her heart to allow some light in.

Cyndi Sand-Eveland hardly makes the characters in The Tinfoil Sky likeable.  Mel is perhaps the most innocuous, keeping most of her thoughts to herself.  She works to please her mother and accept her weaknesses but Mel can see the consequences of Cecily's poor choices, regardless of how her mother tries to make things "fun".  As different as Cecily and Gladys are, they are truly mother and daughter, selfishly holding onto their bitterness and placing Mel in the middle.  It is only when Mel interacts with Gladys or Cecily one-on-one that their concerns for Mel are evident. Mel, Gladys, Cecily are real.  They are completely lacking in the family ties that create the saccharine families of TV sitcoms.  Instead Cyndi Sand-Eveland has created an authentic family with typically dysfunctional relationships that bind them together, willing or not.  And while I always am hopeful that most children have comfortable, loving families that help them become the best they can be, I know that there are those like Mel's in which children become amazing people in spite of their families, not because.