Abstract
Reviewed by: The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Alexander, Zeno The Library of Ever. Imprint, 2019 [208p] (The Library of Ever) Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16917-4 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-250-16916-7 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-6 Eleven-year-old Lenora is exploring the public library when an enormous stone archway appears where moments before only a blank wall had stood. She steps through it to find an epically grand library with seemingly endless shelves, thousands of doors, a whirlwind of activity, and a businesslike librarian who hires Lenora on the spot as an assistant apprentice librarian. Her first task is to staff the help desk for Calendars, which ends up landing her in a time machine with a polite but frazzled robot; she manages to get back, and now it’s onto Cartography, where she treks “the world’s largest globe” to find the city with the longest name; her biggest challenge, though, is those nasty men in black who keep popping up and demanding that some information should be restricted. There is no subtlety in Alexander’s spirited [End Page 284] pro-library message, and the tone unfortunately moves into preachy when Lenora scolds the villains; the book also takes a few shots at screens and social media with a heavy hand. The library world, however, is utterly enchanting, and Lenora’s journey through it is full of delightful, internet-hole inspiring tidbits; an ancient Egyptian city devoted entirely to the worship of cats, the ins and out of ant communication, and the lost languages Linear A and Linear B are just a few of the subjects of Lenora’s searches that may send readers off on journeys of their own. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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