Mortimer is a large ginger cat who lives in a house turned into a tourist attraction of historical interest. But when a cart full of books from the house is wheeled out for the community to:

Take a Book. Leave a Book. Or Both.

…he goes with it. He stays there, making the woman who feeds him bring his dinner out to him. Mortimer meets many in his community as they check out this new lending library, including a boy named Evan.

Evan is worried. It is his last week before school finishes for the year. When he goes back, it will be to Middle School, where the kids are huge and everything will be completely different. At least he has his best friend Rafe who will be alongside. Evan takes a couple of books from the free library and soon discovers a mystery about a town library long gone after burning to the ground. Nobody wants to talk about it, and a strange reaction from his dad makes Evan wonder even more.

Al tells her story – now where she is living with her housemates, and from years before when she was a librarian at the town library. Everybody believes she’s the quiet, strange lady of the neighbourhood and they leave her be, but she is more connected to them than they know – Evan’s family most of all.

Evan begins to unravel the town mystery after finding a photo in one of the free library books he borrowed. He explores places in his town he’s never been before. All the while, Als past is catching up with her and her present is changing around her.

Who is Al, and what caused that library fire long ago? Will Evan ever learn his father’s secret? Or maybe he has more than one.

Told in the viewpoint of a cat, a librarian, and a young keen reader, The Lost Library is a real treat.

The narrator speaks directly to the reader, the first being when the viewpoint character changes. She know this may confuse a reader and explains. I always enjoy this form of storytelling, as it feels as someone is telling me the story, I’m not just reading it.

We get to know the characters and others in the small town, and slowly they link together along with a thread of a mystery. This mystery is full of emotion as a boy discovers his father holds an upsetting secret about his childhood library.

The three different narrators have an engaging story on their own, making the inevitable connections all the more satisfying. As a writer, I particularly enjoyed the love of books throughout a community, writing tips as part of the story plot, and how they were used to help reveal the long ago mystery.

This story is something special, masterfully crafted, engaging, with a surprising conclusion.

Authors – Rebecca Stead & Wendy Mass

Age – 8+

(2023, Text Publishing, Family, Secret, Animals, Mystery, School, Cat, Mouse, Mice, Lending Library, Books, Famous Author, Finding Clues, Ghosts, Small Town, Truth, Fire, Blame)