One for the Books: Let’s Hear it for Librarians
- Mary Louise Ruehr
They’re teachers, they’re advisers, they’re know-it-alls. They’re a veritable fountain of information. They’re trained to know what you want to read and where to find what you want to know. They’re our librarians. Here are three novels I enjoyed recently that feature librarians, as well as a must-read nonfiction account of what it’s like to stand up to censorship.
“The Boxcar Librarian” by Brianna Labuskes is set during the Depression era in Montana. There are three separate storylines that eventually come together, all featuring “the Company” vs. its overworked miners and their union.
We meet Alice in 1924, a book-loving young woman who wants to offer the relaxation of books to the miners in the mining camps around Missoula. At first, her father hires a driver to take her and her books up to the miners. But later, she gets the idea of filling a railroad boxcar with books and delivering the mobile library by train. Great idea, but some in power are opposed to the library because they don’t want books giving the workers ideas. “Knowledge is power … and when you give it to workers they may actually wield it.”
Alice’s love for Montana is conveyed in some pretty writing: “The sun had settled in around the tops of the trees, painting everything golden. Not even the dust kicked up from the dry road could detract from the beauty of the land she adored and feared and claimed as her own no matter what.”
In 1936, Millie is hired by the Federal Writers Project, a program created as a “way to employ the sheer number of writers who needed relief. So the American Guide Series — Baedeker-like travel books for each state — was born.” Recently, the written pages and photographs for the Montana guide that were sent to Washington turned out to be blank. Millie is sent to Montana to find out who would want to sabotage the manuscript.
In another scenario, Collette’s Shakespeare-loving father is a union organizer fighting for the miners against the Company. The life of a miner is awful: “It was sixteen hour shifts in yawning darkness, it was then getting a paycheck that was in the negative anyway.” One woman says, “This life isn’t noble. This life is hard. It’s backbreaking and soul-crushing and even with help and relief I can barely give my children enough food to eat.”
The plot includes murder, scandal, a love story or two, friendship, betrayal, and a few mysteries. The book starts out going back and forth in time from 1914 to 1936, with the same characters throughout, and when it all comes together later, it’s riveting. A most enjoyable read with a lovely ending that left tears in my eyes.
Oh, and there really was a boxcar library. The “author’s note” explains how much is true.
“The Librarians of Lisbon” by Suzanne Nelson is inspired by actual historical people and events. Portugal was neutral during World War II, but its capital, Lisbon, was a “hotbed of spies” for both sides. It was also a sanctuary for European refugees fleeing Nazi persecution.
In 1943, two young women librarians from Boston join the American cause. One is escaping an unwanted marriage, the other believes that in Europe she can reunite with the soldier she loves. The women are trained for espionage for six months at the “Farm,” where they “learned how to fire a gun, wield a knife, and wire a bomb,” as well as lock-picking, code-breaking, and “the art of sabotage and killing,” which will really come in handy.
In Lisbon, Selene’s cover is that she works as a secretary. She’s a beauty and is told to use her seductive talents with important men. “She’d wanted escape, thrill, anonymity. But this wasn’t like the scenarios she’d rehearsed with the other trainees at the Farm. They’d skirted around the idea of death, but now she’d arrived at its doorstep.”
Bea’s job is in the library, sending published material back to Washington. “The Library of Congress wants us to save as much of the printed word as we can, before the Reich burns it all. Some of it, like newspapers that might provide hints about troop movements and Axis plots, goes straight to the colonel to pass on to Allied intelligence. Maps and weaponry and machinery manuals, too.” She thinks her job is pretty safe until she’s recruited for secret work.
They both meet men involved in Underground activity, but can they be trusted? And there’s a mystery: Who is the Nazi informant in the prime minister’s inner circle? The cast includes Nazis, smugglers, double agents, murderers, and the secret police. The love scenes are racy but not prurient. The plot zigzags between the two complex, sympathetic female characters.
A nicely written book with a satisfying ending.
“The Secret Librarian” by Soraya M. Lane is also set mainly in Lisbon in World War II. She starts us out in France, where a man is killed as he and his wife, who work with the French Underground, are fleeing their Nazi pursuers. She knows they were betrayed, but by whom? She tells a friend, “Someone we trusted double-crossed us and gave our location over to the Nazis, and I won’t stop until I find out who that person was.” Her friend urges her to leave France immediately. “Find your way to Lisbon. … Lisbon is full of spies; you’ll find a way to be helpful to the cause.”
In Lisbon, the woman has changed her name to Camille and now runs a bookshop, still quietly seeking their betrayer. She meets a young American woman, Avery, who has a degree in library science and has been recruited by the U.S. government for a mission: to copy documents for a war archive openly and also secretly look for anything Nazi-related that might help the Allies. The two women find commonality and work together in secret for the Allied cause. The problem: The Portuguese secret police are watching them.
This is great historical fiction, part mystery-thriller, part romance, with characters to love and hate, action, and intrigue. A nice epilogue gives the book a comfy closure. I really enjoyed it.
Amanda Jones tells her own true story in “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America.” Jones is a teacher and librarian at a middle school in southern Louisiana. She says she’s a politically moderate white Christian who always voted Republican. When people began demanding that books be removed from the library, she dared to speak out against book banning at a school board meeting, explaining that librarians are trained to find age-appropriate material for schools and to find books for the diverse populations they serve. She immediately became the target of extremists, who trashed her reputation on social media and on TV. She received death threats and endured the betrayal of “friends” and colleagues who went along with those attacking her.
The first death threat she received in an email ended with “You can’t hide. We know where you work + live…. you have a LARGE target on your back. Click, click … see you soon.” She writes, “They posted a picture of me with a target around my head. … I wonder if I am going to be attacked every time I step outside my home.” She adds, “They published my name and said that I was fighting hard to ‘keep sexually erotic and pornographic materials in the kid’s section’ of our public library.” All these accusations, she says, are lies. “I wondered how people could believe whatever they saw on social media and think it was true. I wondered if they even thought it was true or if it just made them feel good to spread hate.”
Her personal story is an inset of the larger picture happening across America. This could happen to anybody who dares to speak out. It’s definitely a must read. But be warned: The book contains graphic images from the ugly online posts.
Happy reading!
Mary Louise Ruehr
Mary Louise Ruehr is a books columnist for The Portager. Her One for the Books column previously appeared in the <em>Record-Courier</em>, where she was an editor.