“One sunny day at the local library… a family of readers rushed in the front door. To read and enjoy. To search and explore.” In this delightful rhyming celebration of libraries, the family first finds things to read, while around them, patrons of all ages and interests are engaged in reading and more: students are practicing French, athletes are reading sports stories, and a group is taking a bread-baking class.
Soon the older brother, who wears a scouting uniform, is engaged with other scouts making an astronomy diorama; the older sister is helping friends in a robot competition; dad finds a baking book; and the mother is learning auto repair. The youngest sibling, however, continues to be carried away to worlds of imagination by reading and reading, unperturbed by all of the various activities around him.
The day progresses, and we see even more of library life: a book group, a gardening club, and a role-playing game group, among other things. Finally, it’s closing time, and the patrons pack up and check out their books. The family drives away, full of knowledge and inspiration. Meanwhile, a young child, whom observant readers will note has been hiding in plain sight on every page, watching all the action, finally picks up a first book to read.
While the main family here doesn’t appear to be obviously LGBTQ, their car has a rainbow bumper sticker on it, implying that one or more of them is queer or they are at least allies. A Progress Pride flag is also visible on the library circulation desk in the very first full spread (and several subsequent ones), and one of the other patron families appears to be a two-mom (or mom-and-nonbinary-parent) couple.
Author Rob Sanders, who is an accomplished poet as well as a prose writer, gives us spot-on verse and fun, evocative collective nouns for the various groups of patrons: “a clamor of clerks”; “a hover of mothers,” and more. The verse lifts what could be a pedantic recitation of all the things to do at a library and makes it instead a lively and engaging story, tailor-made for read-alouds. It’s a highly recommended story both for libraries and for homes that want to instill a love of libraries and all they have to offer.
The featured family is White, but the librarians and patrons represent a variety of racial/ethnic identities.
