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PICTURE BOOKS
Giovanni, Nikki

A Library

32 pp. | HarperCollins/Versify | September, 2022 | Trade ISBN 978-0-35-838765-7 $18.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Erin K. Robinson. In this picture-book celebration of libraries and reading, poet Giovanni writes about the Carnegie Library, which she regularly visited as a child. Robinson's digital art resembles vibrant collages and features a young Black girl with jaunty pigtails tied with twirly yellow ribbons. Her puffy aqua dress with a Peter Pan collar helps set the time period in the 1950s. The little girl explains why she loves her library: it's "a place to be free / to be in space / to be a cook / to be a crook / to be in love / to be unhappy." She thinks about being "quick and smart" but also "contained and cautious"; she imagines herself playing jazz and sailing. Returning home with her stack of books, the girl carries out her chores before going back to reading, wrapped up in a brightly colored patchwork quilt, the patches echoing the covers of the volumes she's reading--so that in her daily life she is constantly surrounded by love and vibrancy. In a touching author's note Giovanni talks about her own childhood experience at the "colored" library, where a special librarian would get her poetry books from the main library.
Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

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