by Lewis Buzbee
ages: 10-14

I’m not going to review the book — I liked it, well enough, but thought it fell apart in the end. Instead, since this is what I really liked from reading it, I thought I’d share some of the wonderful bookish quotes from the book.

“Every book he recognized opened up the world of that book to him. These weren’t stacks of paper bound together with glue or string–they weren’t items or products. Every book was an entire universe.” (p. 26)

“Reading a library book wasn’t something you did on your own. It was something you shared with everyone who had ever read that book. You read the book in private, yes, but other hands had been on it, had softened its pages and loosened its spine. With hardcovers, the clear shiny Bro-Dart, put on to protect the dust jacket, quickly got scuffed and crinkly, and sometimes you’d find a thumbprint pressed into the plastic. The book, when you were done with it, went back to the library, and from there to other hands. When you read a library book, you were connected to all these strangers.” (p. 56)

“When you read, the world really did change. He understood this now. You saw parts of the world you never knew existed. Books were in the world; the world was in books.” (p. 89)

Isn’t that so true?

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know that whatever brief opinion is in this post, it’s my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)