The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

Title: The Lost Library
Author: Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
Publication: Feiwel and Friends, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Juvenile Mystery
Setting: Smalltown, USA

Description: When a Little Free Library mysteriously appears in Martinsville, with a warm-hearted but worried guardian cat, fifth graders Evan and his friend Rafe are intrigued. The handwritten sign says, “Take a book, leave a book. Or both.” Evan takes two books and when he gets home, he sees “Martinville Library” on the inside circulation pockets, although he knows the town’s library burned to the ground years ago and was never rebuilt. Evan finds something inside the book that makes him curious about the fire that none of the adults in his life will discuss. Determined to solve the mystery, Evan begins investigating the connection between the fire, the marmalade cat, and Al, the librarian, and his own father.

My Impression: Doesn't it seem as if a lot of books suddenly have the word 'library' in the title?  They know how to hook us, don't they? This particular book started off slowly and contained far too many mice for someone who found a dead one in her attic on Christmas Eve (better dead than alive?) but it’s impossible not to enjoy a book about a library, a librarian, and several children who love books. Some of the characters are ghosts, which is suitable for October:

Well, yes. Sadly. People died.

This might be a good time to introduce myself.

I was the assistant librarian at the Martinville Library on the night it burned to the ground.

You can call me Al.

I live in Martinville’s History House, not far from where the old library once stood. I moved in after the fire with my supervisor, Ms. Scoggin, and her patron, Mr. Brock. No one minds about the three of us living there – we hardly take up any room, being ghosts (plus cat).

I liked that the ghosts live in a local history museum, although when the Little Free Library is created, the cat, whose name is Mortimer, moves outside to guard the books. His reason is part of the mystery that Evan has to untangle in an appealing blend of fantasy and mystery.

Rebecca Stead wrote When You Reach Me, which won the Newbery in 2010 and was a sort of tribute to A Wrinkle in Time. Did you read it? I was not previously familiar with her coauthor, Wendy Mass but I just learned the New York Betsy-Tacy group is reading her book, A Mango-Shaped Space, in November so I will know her solo work soon. However, I have to admit it takes a pretty extraordinary middle-grade book to really impress me these days and this wasn't it. By the end, I was enjoying it but it seemed very slight and I wasn’t sure a child would yearn to reread it, which is one of my tests. Nor did I think the resolution of the mystery was going to change public opinion regarding the person who allegedly caused the fire. 

Source: Library (and it’s overdue!). This was my twenty-seventh book for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge.