The keeper of stories

Lyrical text with prayer-like refrains joins impressionistic collage and multimedia images as Kusin Pritchard (Where Is Poppy?) and Alko (Sharing Shalom) recount the 1966 fire at New York City's Jewish Theological Seminary Library. Founded in 1893, the Upper West Side library served as "a keeper of stories. A keeper of memories. A keeper of hope," welcoming readers of many backgrounds and playing an essential role in Jewish culture: "When others tried to erase these stories and their tellers, the keeper welcomed the words that were safe nowhere else." Seventy-some years later, flames erupt, and the blaze is shown sending black curls of smoke into the air alongside words and images, the scene seeming to draw parallels with the Holocaust. After firefighters wrap the library bookshelves in canvas, streams of water from firehoses course among the precious volumes ("Rushing water, keep our stories alive," text implores). Urgency grips the city after the fire, and volunteers form a human chain to remove the books, one by one, while further recovery efforts involve a simple action: "thousands of hands" press the wet pages between paper towels, eventually saving 170,000 volumes. Readers are pulled into the desperate fight to save irreplaceable treasures throughout a work that emphasizes the keeping done not only by libraries but by communities and people, too--guardians of memory and meaning, preserving the past for future generations. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Back matter includes contextualizing information and an author's note. Ages 4--8. Author's agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. Illustrator's agent: Marietta B. Zacker, Gallt and Zacker Literary. (Feb.)

Stories must be preserved at all costs. In April 1966, a raging fire broke out at the Jewish Theological Seminary on Manhattan's Upper West Side, threatening to destroy its historic, multilingual, and multidisciplinary library. In what became known as Operation Booklift, religious leaders of various faiths worked tirelessly alongside the diverse community to salvage, clean, repair, and restore the collections. Seventy thousand items were ultimately lost, though miraculously 170,000 books and other materials were rescued. A food scientist proposed freeze-drying the soaked items, drenched from firefighters' onslaught of water. Then a library volunteer came up with a more doable solution: inserting paper towels between wet pages. The call went out, and volunteers raised the necessary funds to purchase toweling. The urgency of the community is matched by the book's compelling text. Pritchard's forceful writing is marked by inspired turns of phrase. A recurring refrain set in blue type--"Keep our stories alive"--is breathlessly addressed to the walls of the library, to the firefighters' blankets, to the sprays of rushing water, and to the pages themselves. The marvelous illustrations, created with acrylic paints, colored pencil, and collage, are abuzz with spirited, robust movement; Alko's use of found objects, including what appear to be book excerpts, lends the narrative immediacy. A stirring testament to the power of books to unite us all for good. (about the Jewish Theological Seminary Library fire of 1966, photos, author's note, key sources)(Informational picture book. 6-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.