Books on libraries ... libraries in books

What’s common to a picture book located in Colombia, an Eoin Colfer book and a book of poems? Lucid, easy-flowing narration, outstanding artwork and the sheer joy of reading? Of course – and what else? Do read on  …

The first of the three books is a non-fiction picture book based on the extraordinary deeds of a Colombian philanthropist bibliophile; the second is a work of fiction, a chapter book that uses irreverent humour to introduce children to the library and vice-versa; the third is a book of carefully selected poems for children that unpack the idea of a library as a place of unexpected delights. The books are a visual treat too with the work of remarkable illustrators like Jeanette Winter, Tony Ross and Jill Manning.

Biblioburro: A true story from Colombia. Jeanette Winter. Beach Lane, 2010. 28 pages. Picture Book.

This is a charming tale of a man called Luis Soriano who sets up a travelling library on the backs of two donkeys (burros). Luis, a schoolteacher, loves reading and buying books, except that soon enough, his house runs out of space. He decides to travel with his books to remote hamlets in Colombia, where he gathers the children to tell them stories and encourages them to borrow books from his Biblioburro. The books cast a spell over everyone, be it child or bandit. (Does that intrigue you? Get a copy of the book and read to know more!)

While the text is simple and flowing, I could not take my eyes off the artwork. It spills right across the page into glorious doublespreads, and uses the most vivid colours to capture the beauty of the Amazon rain forest with its diverse plant and animal life. The butterflies that flit across every page are characters in themselves. The illustrator’s name is not mentioned clearly, but the fine print says the illustrations are copyrighted by Jeanette Winter. Winter is well-known for her attractively illustrated and narrated picture books, many of which tell true tales of uncommon heroism.

This is a book that I would love to gift to children both for the inspiring narrative and the eye-catching illustrations.

The Legend of Spud Murphy. Eoin Colfer. Illustrated by Tony Ross. Puffin, 2004. 90 pages. Chapter Book.

Having associated Eoin Colfer with the Artemis Fowler series, I was rather surprised to come across this book. It’s a funny book about libraries and librarians and having taken baby steps into the world of library evangelism, I decided that I must read this. This book is part of a series involving the many adventures of Will Woodman, and has won the Charlotte Award (2006) and the Flicker Tale Children’s Book Award (2006).

Ms Murphy, the librarian is called Spud by the kids who fear her believing she shoots at library defaulters with a spud gun. One summer, Bill, the nine-year-old narrator is marched off to the public library three times a week for two hours at a time along with his ten-year-old brother Marty as their mother finds bringing up five children to be an exhausting task. Like most parents all over the world, Will’s parents see the library primarily as an educative place.

At the library, Will and Marty are issued pink cards and restricted to the children’s section where they sulk, pretending to read. However, one day, something catches Bill’s eye: “It was the first sentence of the story … I decided to read a bit more. I wouldn’t read the whole book, no way. But maybe just another couple of sentences.” It’s a magical moment and soon enough, Bill and Marty begin to love reading and have “the time of their lives”. The humour too never ceases with their several run-ins with the legendary Spud Murphy.

I loved the way the writer transforms the library from its perceived fearful avatar to a place that holds excitement and adventure, without sounding preachy. The illustrations by Tony Ross enhance the quirky appeal of the book. Ross appears to be a fan of the more famous Quentin Blake, on whose work he models his own art.

  Jumping off library shelves. Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Illustrated by Jane Manning. Wordsong, 2015. 32 pages. Book of poems.

This delightful anthology brings two of my childhood favourites together – poems and tomes. A book of poems that celebrate the library, not as a staid old building filled with books, or a ‘temple of learning’ but as a world of experiences that could be as varied as getting your first library card which is “More powerful than/ the smartest phone/ more powerful than/ a TV remote, more powerful than/ a hundred apps” (Cynthia Cotton); the pleasure of snuggling up with a book as “Page by page/ line by line/ word by word/ I make books mine” (Jane Yolen); talking with the empathetic librarian – “you/ read/ my/ heart” (Joan Bransfield Graham); or just sitting beside a bookshelf when “Morning pours spoons of sun/ through tall windows”  and you “live in story” (Rebecca Kai Dotlich).

These short poems can be read aloud and enjoyed by children who are naturally drawn to verse. They applaud every aspect of the library, and especially the librarian who dons various hats as a storyteller, a book-finder and a door-opener to magical worlds where “books become pillows/ stories come calling” (Amy Ludwig Vanderwater).  Of special interest is Hopkins’ poem dedicated to a great librarian Augusta Baker. It’s titled “The Storyteller” and Hopkins writes, “As she speaks/ words/ leap from pages --/ … I walk/ down a/ yellow brick road./ Worlds of paper/ disappear --/ only/ Miss Augusta/ and I/ are here/ in a room/ filled with magic/ story/ rhyme. I believe in/ happily ever after”.

Jill Manning’s charming gouache and pencil illustrations further enhance the magic created by the words and picture the library as both a warm and enticing refuge and an exciting place to be in. I would certainly recommend this book to children for it captures in the simplest of verse the magic of reading that I experienced as a child. One particular poem by Nikki Grimes stood out for me and I wished I had written it myself:

My library comes into view

Almost there!

I sprint the last few yards,

charge up the stone steps, breathless,

and push through the double doors,

smiling at the sweet kingdom of story

inviting me in

to rest, to explore –

to dream.

While all the three books romanticize the library to an extent, Colfer and Winter also touch upon the transformative power of reading. I think these books will help young readers to see the library with new eyes and put their tech toys away and surrender to the lure of “pages where genius weaves/ letters into magic” (Dotlich).

Reading myself into and through books

I have been reading a lot of picture books lately for the course I am doing on children's libraries. Some of them are absolutely stunning in terms of artwork, innovative fonts, thought-provoking layout, economy of text and multilayered narratives. And yes, I will blog about them soon. 

In the meantime, here is a piece I wrote inspired by a picture book titled A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. Enjoy!

I am a child of books.

I sail across a sea of words, as I read myself into books and read myself through books. Leaning back against the sturdy branches of the bimbli tree in my childhood home, or the warm sunkissed tiled roof of the house where I spent my teenage years, I spend hours making friends with people who live in the pages of books, and come to life in the squiggles that work like magic spells. 

I read books to get through school and college. I read books at parties, too shy and awkward to converse and make friends. When my father books tickets for long bus journeys to visit relatives during the school holidays, I pack my bag with a tome or two and prepare to journey through forests of fairytales.

I come from a world of stories, a place where giraffes browse in my backyard, Goethe’s Faust sinks into despair, and Irving Stone’s Van Gogh paints his madness onto canvas. “Thigele gandi peshi kadetha”, my grandmother laments worrying that my absorption with the book in my hands will prevent me from noticing my surroundings (read housework that I will be expected to do). My mother smiles as she places a third and then a fourth dosa on my plate and, finicky eater that I am, I eat them without noticing, for I am busy savouring Hemingway’s tale of the old man and his battle with the fish rather than the coconut chutney on my plate.

In college, I discover Kafka and the Russian writers and am drawn to the abyss of despair that their writings open up. “Come away with me” they seem to call out, and I shake my head, knowing that like Theseus, I will find my way through the maze.

I get married and move to Bangalore and my books travel along with me. (“No, ma, I don’t have space for my trousseau saris, I have to pack my Jane Austen collection”) When returning from our honeymoon, we stop over at Calcutta and rush to College Street, where I buy Johanna Spyri’s Heidi for three rupees, and Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitrangada for two rupees fifty paisa! My husband and I set up house, linger over our book collections, and hurriedly arrange the other stuff in some semblance of order. Dusting takes a backseat, as I pick up a copy of Melville’s Moby Dick and upon my imagination, I float.

When my son turns one, a circulating library in my neighbourhood shuts shop, and vulture-like, I swoop on them to buy up their stock at throw-away prices.  Dog-eared copies of Enid Blyton, Bertrand Russel, Robin Cook and A.J. Cronin form a contiguous chain of book joy as they perch spine-to-spine, next to each other in the rough-hewn shelves we have fixed to the walls in place of the floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall mahogany book cabinets of my dreams. I plonk my son into his pram and walk through the Jayanagar fourth block complex, travelling over mountains of make-believe. I notice with a start that the only people I can recognize and who know me back are the people at Nagasri Book House. 

In the school and college classrooms where I pretend to teach, I share my love of books with the students. We discuss Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Amitava Kumar’s Bombay London New York, and talk about how books have shaped us. I write plays for the children to perform on Annual Day, and the stories are drawn from Greek myths, Indian folk tales, science fiction and other tales of yore. My reading shapes me and the ways in which I shape the world around me. When I visit Germany, I spend some quiet moments at Bebelplatz, beside Micha Ullman’s installation of an underground library with empty shelves, to remember the horrific night when the Nazis burnt twenty thousand books.  I think back on Bertolt Brecht’s poem "A Worker Reads History" and understand there are treasures to discover, even in the darkness.

I dream of opening a library, a bookstore, a publishing house. I dream of crafting stories that speak, of writing books that will call out to readers, of creating narratives that will resonate with others’ lives, of spinning yarns that will help them escape the banality of reality. I dream. Ah well, imagination is free.

With apologies to Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston - the phrases in bold are taken from their picture book, A Child of Books.

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