Skip to main content

Review: The Library of Unruly Treasures

By
The Library of Unruly Treasures
Written by Jeanne Birdsall
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. J Fiction, 345 pages.

Gwen MacKinnon has no reason to believe she is special. Her own parents are terribly negligent and preoccupied. But when she is sent to the Boston area to stay with a relative she's never met before, everything starts to change. First, Gwen finds love and warmth in her great uncle's Matthew's home. Then Gwen makes an astonishing discovery. The local children have a "shared imagination" of tiny, winged creatures who live in the town's beautiful old library. These Lahdukan emigrated from Scotland and have been cared for by generations of MacKinnon girls. Only children under six years old can see them. Except Gwen realizes she can see them too. This reveals her destiny as a Qalba, a caretaker of the Lahdukan. This previously ignored, neglected girl grows in bravery, confidence, and self-assuredness as she leads her clan of fantastic creatures to a new home.

This is a well-written, sweet book that holds realism and fantasy with equal regard. I loved the unfolding of the Lahdukan culture. Lahdukan are dignified, intelligent, sophisticated creatures with rituals and prophecies. The immediate love Gwen has for them and the deep reverence they have for her is really unique and touching. The Library of Unruly Treasures would be a great read for someone who likes fantasy grounded in emotional truth, or for anyone who believes in the worth of unwanted girls.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Sole Survivor

By
  Sole Survivor  Written By Norman Ollestad and Brendan Kiely  New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2025. 255 pages.  This is a juvenile biography/memoire about the plane crash that Norman Ollestad survived when he was a sixth grader. The book starts off with Norman wining a skiing competition and heading home to play in a hockey game only to head onto an airplane with his dad, his dad’s girlfriend (Sandra), and the pilot so he could go and claim his trophy for the skiing competition. Only, the plane crashed and the pilot and Norman’s dad were killed. Then when Sandra falls and dies as well, Norman is left as the sole survivor from the plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains during a snowstorm.  Fans of Hatchet or other adventure novels will love reading how Norman survived this ordeal. And they will be even more impressed with the fact that this is a true story and the person who survived and is still alive today. This book goes over all of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more