Love your Library with ‘Library’ Books

Library Lovers' Day is drawing near and so, in this timely post, we discover some gorgeous picture books that celebrate libraries – join the fun with Loretta Brazendale as she shares her favourites. Mark the day in your calendar, check out events in a library near you in February and find resources on the ALIA website.

On the 14^th of February not only do we celebrate Valentine’s Day but we celebrate the most important day! Library Lovers Day! So, it was only fitting for me to write my first blog for 2023 on all things Library and what we love about our libraries! My favourite thing about libraries are the children’s books, because these stories can really inspire the love of storytelling, reading, imagination and how children’s books can start some amazing conversations and memories for children.  

The last book in my review comes about because the first book I read in the series by this author was the best! My absolute favourite memory so far in working in a library is because of this book. I read the book in question to a class that was visiting the library and told them that it is my favourite and after I read the story I explained why. Little did I know the class also loved the story and their visits to the library so much that at their end of year school assembly I was invited to attend as their special guest and what a wonderful surprise I got! Not only was it mentioned how important their library visits were, but a prerecording was played of each student reading a page of the book I had read to them, dressed as the main character. Even the teachers and the assistance dog got involved. You will have to read to the end of the reviews to find out which book has stolen my heart! Enjoy 

Lucy’s Book by Natalie Jane Prior

This gorgeous picture book is a celebration of library books, librarians, sharing books with friends and the joy of reading and re-reading a favourite book. This story was more like the life cycle of a library book when it becomes much sought after. I loved how the library theme was strong throughout the book. The illustrations are wonderful, and I highly recommend this beautiful book. 

The Lost Library by Jess McGeachin 

A great picture book with a "library" adventure!  I also enjoyed seeing at the end of the book, Ms. Hardback, the librarian, left a note for the reader asking if they can find a dragon on each page. I love that! I would love to find a lost library and get lost in it, imagine the books you could find, I’m thinking this would make a great children’s themed event in our library! Maybe I could dress as a dragon for the event!

Our Library by Donna Rawlins 

This beautiful book could nearly be an instruction guide for library staff. When reading this story, I felt like it was telling the story of my library! The book explains that libraries are vibrant and inclusive and not a place to just sit and be quiet. Really is an amazing picture book to introduce children and families to all the wonderful things in a library. 

The Gobbledygook is Eating a Book by Justine Clarke and Arthur Baysting

Ahhh finally a book of teaching the importance of loving and looking after your books. I think every library staff member would love this book! The story has fun, silly rhymes that children would think are seriously funny. Fantastic colourful illustrations throughout. 

Now it’s no secret that Maggie Hutchings first Cockroach tale became my absolutely favourite book in 2021!! So much so that I dressed as the funny little cockroach for Book Week in 2021!! It’s my go to book to share with children that come into the library! I have already reviewed “Your Birthday was the Best!’ in a past review so it’s only fair I review the next best thing that has happened to this little Cockroach! 

Your School is the Best! by Maggie Hutchings 

I think why I love these 2 stories is because of the differing perspectives. The cockroach and his family think they are being super friendly and helpful, but the poor little guy and his family are just terrorizing a classroom of children. And again, I love the illustrations in this book, the look of horror on the children's faces are so detailed. This book is truly the best. 

Loretta Brazendale

Information Services Coordinator
Burnie Library | Libraries Tasmania 

Editor’s note: Do you have a special library moment to share or a favourite story that celebrates books and libraries? Add a comment and expand the list. I adore the notion of creating a community library celebrated in The Great Book-Swapping Machine by Emma Allen & Lisa Coutts..

The Haven: In Defence of the School Library

Psst.  Have you noticed? Libraries are disappearing… fast. Lyndon Riggall shines a spotlight on a worrying trend with serious consequences.

When you are someone in the community who is known for their love of the written word, there are two things that people invariably want to talk to you about: e-books, and what is happening to (or has already happened to) their local school library.

The first conversation is a fairly simple one: yes, I love my local bookshops, and there is still something about books printed on paper. No, I will never get used to charging a book from a power point, which feels like a violation of some natural order. I agree, it does seem a reasonable trade-off for the advantage of carrying a thousand books in your pocket, and yes, changing the font size as necessary and the subtle lighting of the screen that can be enjoyed for nights on end without a headtorch on a camping trip, or next to a sleeping partner long into the small hours of the morning, is a revelation.

The second kind of conversation is less straightforward, and this is often because there is a kind of grief that comes with it. A school library, I am told, is shrinking. The teacher librarian has disappeared without fuss or furor, and now the building is open only if and when a teacher can make use of the facilities—the old doors creaking apart to dark shadows like the entrance to a crypt, literary tombstone stacked upon tombstone. In some cases, the library has shrunk, replaced by a series of trolleys, an in-class bookshelf, or a storeroom somewhere near the toilet block. Worse, occasionally it is already too late. The library, I am told, is gone. Schools—such big, unwieldy, unyielding places sometimes—can do this as quickly as taking a breath, and so in an instant it has instead become a classroom; two classrooms; three classrooms. Now, it is as if it was never there at all. A library ends, not with a bang or a whimper, but with an almost inaudible “Shhhhhh.”

I have spoken many times on this blog, in passing, about the value of libraries, which have always struck me as the most absurd and inspiring of institutions: a building dedicated to the free access of information and story; perhaps one of the last bastions of a time in which we actively strove towards a utopian world where knowledge was available to all of us and we really could have something for nothing. Libraries, I accept, need to evolve to survive. I remember feeling a kind of shock and horror growing up on the day that banks of computers invaded the bookshelves, and the definition of what our library was, and who it serviced, expanded to include people who may visit the library every day and yet very rarely cracked the spine of a book, but each library—in both school and the community at large—was a safe haven. I have heard a hundred stories of the readers, the computer nerds, the misfits and the bullied who found solace in a quiet corner beyond the librarian’s desk. In some cases, its very existence can be life-saving.

The loss of our school libraries points to the simple and fundamental truth that humans have been living with for some (if not all) time: honestly, we have no idea what’s good for us. A library is a remarkable thing, but, like so many remarkable things, the hole left behind by its absence is often only properly and acutely felt when it is already too late.

I suppose the other side of this discussion is that I only hear about all of these libraries and what is happening to them because people are passionate. They feel, as I do, that a school without a well-stocked library is a mere shadow of what it could be… it is a house without its hearth; a body without a brain or a beating heart. Encouraging children to read, and to read with pleasure and enthusiasm, consistently and often, is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and I admit that with no hesitation (I might have mentioned it, but you know we have no idea what’s good for us). We need to use our libraries, I know, or we will lose them. Still, there is only one type of library that always fails in its mission to bring the printed word to the wider world, free and without favour, and which is dwindling with terrifying, heartbreaking, ever-increasing frequency, locally, nationally and across the earth…

The library that is no longer there at all. 

Lyndon Riggall is a writer and teacher from Launceston. He is co-host with Annie Warburton of the Tamar Valley Writers Festival Podcast, and in 2019 released his first picture book, Becoming Ellie, in collaboration with artist Graeme Whittle. Lyndon can be found at http://lyndonriggall.com and on Twitter @lyndonriggall.

Editors’ note: Indifference and inertia are part of the problem. Become active and champion children’s rights to quality library services that will support their emotional, social and academic growth and well being. Visit Students Need School Libraries to find out more.