Module 10: Here Lies the Librarian

Book Summary

Module 10: Historical Fiction!

The book by Richard Peck starts with a tornado coming through a little town in Indiana where the story is set. The tornado causes minor damage but manages to extract several bodies from the ground in the town graveyard; some bodies even flew out of their coffins. As the main character, a tomboy named Peewee, goes to check on her mother’s grave, she passes the gravesite of the former town librarian, who was thankfully spared by the tornado like Peewee’s mother. Since the librarian’s death the town decided not to hire a replacement. With the library essentially closed, one of the town farmers took it upon himself to save the entire library collection in his barn because he thought it was important that a town have books, even if there was going to be no library.
Eventually four young women from Indianapolis ride into town in fancy cars, signs of their privilege and class. All students of a Library Science college, they came into town to check out the spectacle of tornado damage and to inquire about the town’s shuttered library. They convince the town’s people to open the library back up and proceed to take turns running it. The leader, Irene, pulls Peewee in to help out as much as she can and also shows her how to be a lady. This is the librarian-related stuff.

APA Reference of Book

Peck, R. (2006). Here lies the librarian. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.


Impressions

The historical aspects are mainly the cars and car mechanic work of the time. There is eventually a race where Jake, Pewee’s older brother, enters a car he has built up himself. There is a rival garage owned by a large family who continually vandalizes Jake and Peewee’s garage and assaults their dog. There is a slight love story where Jake’s love interest—surprise surprise—is really into cars, too! There is a lot of driving and fixing cars. The story seems true to the time period in the descriptions of the way life was lived back then in rural Indiana, the way people spoke, particularly in that region (the author himself is from that area of the country), and the book is true to the specifics about cars of the early 1900s.
I would also like to say that I really appreciated how the author did not adhere to gender stereotypes, even though we tend to think of cars and librarianship (especially librarianship of the past) as very black and white, male versus female practices. Peck stayed true to the time period (a time period which adhered way more to gender roles than we do now) without any sexism, unless it was to demonstrate the everyday sexism of the time and town, as portrayed through the actions of certain characters.
I think the books is very accurate because historical fiction is author Richard Peck’s jam! He is a prolific historical fiction writer, cranking out a book every year! He is well-accustomed to the thorough background research necessary to write a high quality, interesting book of this genre.

Professional Review

PECK, RICHARD Here lies the Librarian. Dial, 2006 [208p] ISBN 0-8037-3080-2 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-8
Peck moves eastward from back-of-beyond Illinois (A Year Down Yonder, BCCB 1/01) to boondocks Indiana, 1914, for this tale of a parentless brother and sister, Jake and Eleanor, who scrape out a living servicing autos in a borrowed shed and dream of opening a real repair shop just as soon as hard pavement makes its way to their corner of the world. The answer to their automotive dreams arrives in a somewhat different guise than they expect-a quartet of affluent young ladies from Indiana University who take over the town library in what must rate as literature's Extreme Job Share. Big brother Jake's attentions seem torn between the lovely Irene and equally lovely Grace, and Irene finds time between shifts to take fourteen-year-old narrator Eleanor in hand and try to make some semblance of a lady out of a rough-hewn grease monkey. Despite the best efforts of a rival service station to sabotage their plans, Jake (with the help of Grace's family clout) gets to race at Indianapolis and Eleanor ultimately takes the wheel as the Stutz rattles first across the finish line. Once again Peck demonstrates his masterful storytelling ability with a riveting opener in which a tornado blows through the cemetery and relocates a host of deceased citizens and/or their bits and pieces. From there, though, much of the plotting relies on the unconvincing and underdeveloped premise that four independently wealthy library grads would take on the rural job, and that a pair of exceedingly eccentric neighbors (even by Peck standards) would keep brother and sister independent over the years. Nonetheless, Eleanor is a delightful narrator whose wry observations draw humor from a culture clash rather than simply exploit rube vs. snob plot potential. EB
Reference

Bush, E. (2006, May). Here lies the librarian. [Review of the book Here lies the librarian, by R. Peck]. Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, 59(9), 418-419.

Library Uses

Use this book and non-fiction books to study the automobile in the 1920s. Look at archival footage of 1920s automobiles, races, and factories. Research which activities were off limits to girls and women in the 1920s.