The books on your shelf disappear sometimes.

And that’s okay: you read them and then they disappear back to the library, where you can bring home even more, even better books! Bet you could live in a library, couldn’t you? In the new book “The Lady of the Library” by Angie Karcher, illustrated by Rachel Sanson, someone else already does.

Usually, on any average day at the library, the Lady of the Library floats through the halls and between the shelves. She shrieks and wails and a few people get scared but mostly, nobody cares since they know she’s just there to be with the books. But one day, the books were leaving, box by box because the library building was old and scheduled to be torn down. The Lady was sad. There’d be a new library in town, but where would she go?

As the librarians carried more boxes outside, a little girl came into the library and sat on the floor. She quietly called to the Lady and explained what was going on. The Lady was worried; could the library be saved?

They started to make plans and a scheme was cooked up.

They made a long row of books, they knocked them all down and the people cheered from all over the town. And just for good measure, the Lady shrieked loud, which kept the workers away – but not very long, not much more than a day.

So a slide was built, and polished slick so that money could be raised, and raised pretty quick. But the workers came back and they turned off the lights, so the Lady screamed loud and they ran into the night.

What else could be done? The little girl and the Lady had plans, and it had to be something big. Just one more idea, that’s all they would need. You find books in a library, but what else?

You read…

Obviously, your child is a budding bookworm. Hearing a story read aloud is a big part of your day together but this cannot be stressed enough: for kids who are easily spooked by ghosts, “The Lady of the Library” is absolutely not the book for them.

It’s a fact that this book is delightful. Author Angie Karcher’s tale is one that many communities know all too well and her two activists, if you will, are resourceful. The ideas they have to save their library are imaginative, and will show kids that they don’t have to be big (or solid-bodied) to make change. That’s underscored when, at the end of this book, a page dedicated to libraries in general and their current struggles is included and, since the haunting of a library is the main theme of both story and illustration, there’s a page about real-life haunted libraries.

Right there’s the beware. Though this book is great for 4-to-8-year-olds, if your child is prone to frights, now’s not the time for this. “The Lady of the Library” is fun but it’ll make a sensitive kid want to disappear.

By Terri Schlichenemyer

“The Lady of the Library” by Angie Karcher, illustrated by Rachel Sanson
c.2021, Sleeping Bear Press
$16.99 / higher in Canada
40 pages