Here Lies the Librarian

by Richard Peck

Book Overview

The Newbery Medal-winning author of A Year Down Yonder is back with a rousing, wicked comedy of cars, role models, and revelation that features quirky characters, a folksy setting, classic cars, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803730802
• ISBN13: 9780803730809
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Dial Books
• Length: 145 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 10 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 5 and higher

Customer Reviews

Upper elementary to upper senior citizen will find delight.

This story, recommended for younger readers, is a delight for any age readers. It's taken me a bit of time to discover it. I pleased I did, and will be looking for other Richard Peck books, regardless of the suggested age. As a former teacher, I found this book educational as well as entertaining. Most students will enjoy the action and events in the story of a teen boy/girl sibling pair and their make-shift automobile garage and race car building attempt. The time is 1914, in rural Indiana. Those with Indianapolis 500 knowledge, racing savy, Hoosier geography orientation, and historical interests of the pre-WWI era, will find plenty of moments to warm your interests. Humor is ladled out within every chapter and each new event. Author, Richard Peck, is masterful at putting a picture into few words, like mentioning the squashed punch bowl's frog, dipped from the library tea, later in the chapter as a 2-dimensional frog. The event begins with a mid-west tornado's after-math destruction within the Beulahland Cemetery. Peck makes it a rib-tickler. Then it's off to building a new library, and scrap parts assembly of a car to race in the county fair's first dirt track race. The 2 kids, both teenagers, have the aid of an Aunt and Uncle, but the odd old duo are so quirky that the adult involvement is less than assistance. Plenty of the folksy insanity running around the rural area of this Indiana byway, but you'll fall in love with all the characters. Young and old. Where's the movie for this? It should be a DVD by now, a blockbuster at the theater, one for all ages, with debut about the end of May, along with the Indianapolis 500 race. It's a sure thing. So while we all wait for a producer & film crew, enjoy the book and the author's delightful tale of "Here Lies the Librarian." As her epitaph states: "SHH!", this is one of the best-kept-secrets on the bookshelf. Remember: ALL AGES, 10 to 110. A "Double-double-dare" recommendation to Hoosiers.

Entertainment for a wide age range.

My sons and I listened to this audiobook on a recent trip and we all enjoyed it. There was enough character development and a great plot to keep me interested, and the storyline moved along well and had enough action to keep the attention of both my 10 year old, as well as my 17 year old. We have read and/or listened to several books by this author and he is an excellent storyteller with an elegant style of writing. This is the type of literature I love to share with my children.

SHH, Here Lies the Librarian

It's 1914 in Hendricks County, Indiana, and Jake and PeeWee McGrath run a garage for those newfangled automobiles. PeeWee, aka Eleanor, doesn't plan to go to high school. She will stay with her older brother and help run the garage, only her brother is a better mechanic. Then four sorority sisters from Butler University in Indianapolis arrive and plan to reopen the town library. Excitement abounds with a rival garage attempting to destroy the McGrath's business and an automobile race that makes NASCAR look like a Sunday drive. If you enjoyed Peck's The Teacher's Funeral, you will love this one. The relationship between Jake and Eleanor is strong and loving. This is a nostalgic and humorous look at the early 20th century.

Here Lies the Librarian

This is a Christmas present. Haven't read it yet. However, the book looks intriguing.

Newfangled Librarians

Richard Peck has again done his usual fine job of depicting what life was like for children in another era. The story takes a variety of twists and turns that keep even adult readers amused and entertained. As a librarian who is interested in how librarians have been, and are, portrayed in children's literature, I found this a worthy addition to the genre. At the time in the early 20th century that Here Lies the Librarian is set, librarianship had become a female profession but was showing signs of undergoing dramatic changes. Peck's former librarian Electra Deitz, who has died shortly before the story opens, was definitely of the old-fashion strict and forbidding kind. His new young female library school graduates are definitely of a different persuasion not only in terms of making the public library accessible and welcoming to users of all ages but also in their every day life. Kids and librarians should enjoy Peck's latest addition to his string of books that are fun to read.