By Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
4RBooks: 5+/6, grades 3-7
Amazon rating: 4.7/5, grade level 3-4
Good Reads: 4.13/5
Common Sense Media: 4/5, age 8+
215 pages
Synopsis:
AL lives in the history house and takes care of the two ghosts who reside there also. She was once the assistant librarian and misses interacting with people and books. She decides to create a “little free library” for the front of the house.
Mortimer the cat lives in the house, too. He’s in charge of keeping the house clear of mice. He doesn’t eat them but escorts them out of the house. He also misses being in the library. When the free library is set up, he stays outside with it, protecting and guarding it.
Evan is a fifth-grade student trying to enjoy his last week of fifth grade without too much worry about going to middle school next year. He stops by the free library one day and takes a couple of books.
This story is alternately told from the perspective of these three main characters. Evan doesn’t know that the two books he checks out will lead him into a town mystery and family drama he didn’t know about. With his best friend Rafe, the two boys try to discover what happened to the original town library and why no one talks about it. With the help of AL and Mortimer, they begin to put the clues together and work their way toward the truth.
Parental Guidance: low
Two of the characters are ghosts. They were killed in a fire.
Recommendation:
It is always a pleasure to read a book aimed at the elementary school audience that is a perfect read for an elementary school student. There was nothing in this novel that would keep me from recommending it to an elementary reader or using it as a class read or small group read in school.
I have read and reviewed a book by Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me, and before I started the blog, I read The Candymakers by Wendy Mass. I enjoyed them both so it is no surprise that a book they wrote together would also end up on my recommended list.
There is so much to like about this book. It is a fun and interesting story that will be a quick read for advanced readers, but it is also an easy read for more reluctant readers (small chapters and only 215 pages). It is a mystery. The clues are simple enough to make deductions along the way, but the final answer is surprising.
A main theme throughout the book is the love of reading, but there are important sub-themes intertwined. In particular, I loved the way Evan’s worry about going to middle school was handled and the importance of communication and empathy is developed well.
I purchased this book at Peregrine Book Company in Prescott, AZ.
I always appreciate good writing and one sentence stood out for its clarity and importance.
“But aren’t “parents” the source of a life’s direction? If life is a line, leading somewhere, aren’t parents the dot from which it sets forth?”
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