National Library Week runs April 6-12, and the catchphrase this year is “What’s the draw? Everything.” We certainly try to achieve that at FVRLibraries, with a mix of books, videos, audiobooks, and electronic resources, as well as Experience Passes, Discovery backpacks, storytimes, book clubs, master gardener workshops and free tax help.
The honorary chairs of National Library Week this year are Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud. Their collaborative juvenile fiction book, The Cartoonists Club: A Graphic Novel was released on April 1, 2025. Both are award-winning authors and illustrators, and we have many of their books in the library. Both have won Eisner Awards - considered the most prestigious award in the comics industry, given for creative achievement in American comics. Check out Understanding Comics: [The Invisible Art] by McCloud (1994) and Smile by Telgemeier (2010).
So many books exist about libraries and librarians! I just finished a cozy mystery by Victoria Gilbert called A Murder for the Books (2017). The author (a librarian herself) did a great job of showing different aspects of a public librarian’s job. One of the things that drew me to the library profession was a need to find answers, and the sleuthing part of a librarian’s job lends itself well to mystery series. Gilbert currently has 8 books in her Blue Ridge Library Mystery series, with a 9th book coming in July 2025. Here are some other book series with librarians solving mysteries:
- Cat in the Stacks mysteries by Miranda James
- Lighthouse Library mystery by Eva Gates
- Library Lover’s mysteries by Jenn McKinlay
- 42nd Street Library mystery by Cornelius Lehane
- Beloved Bookroom mysteries by Dorothy St. James
A delightful juvenile series begins with Escape from Mr. Limoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein (2013). In this engaging series opener, several students are invited to spend the night in the new library, designed by a famous gamemaker - but in the morning, they find they must work together to solve puzzles in order to leave. There are six additional titles in this series. Other juvenile books about libraries and books include:
- The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead (2023)
- Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes (2018)
- Ban This Book: A Novel by Alan Gratz (2017)
- Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman (2015)
- Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck (2006)
No discussion of books-about-libraries should exclude picture books. In keeping with our Drawn to the Library theme, Nikki Giovanni’s lyrical love story, A Library (2022) sparks the imagination with all of the places that a library can take you. Other library-themed picture books:
- This is a Story by John Schu (2023)
- The Library Fish by Alyssa Satin Capucilli (2022)
- Leilong the Library Bus by Siyuan Liu (2020)
- Chicken Story Time by Sandy Asher (2016)
See you at the library!
New at the Library
Fiction
- Battle Mountain by C. J. Box
- Once was Willem by M. R. Carey
- The Oligarch’s Daughter: A Novel by Joseph Finder
Nonfiction
- The Good Death: A Guide for Supporting Your Loved One through the End of Life by Suzanne B. O’Brien
- AI for Life: 100+ Ways to Use Artificial Intelligence to Make Your Life Easier, More Productive…And More Fun! by Celia Quillian
- It Begins with You: The 9 Hard Truths about Love That Will Change Your Life by Jillian Turecki
Children
- What’s Scarier than Thunder? by Ben Falcone
- Zero! The Number that Almost Wasn’t by Sarah Albee
- Bat and the Business of Ferrets (Boy Called Bat series) by Elana Arnold
