Sometimes a typical picture book may mean even more to the grandparent who is reading the story than to its projected audience. Love in the Library by Maggie Takuda-Hall does exactly that. The story is essentially a true one of the author’s grandparents who met in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Tama, like many Japanese Americans relocated to the camps, figures out what she can do to help make life better. Never trained as a librarian but loving books, she works in the tiny library. It will be a while before she figures out the motivation that has George coming every day to check out more long books than anyone could possibly read overnight. Even the youngest readers will probably know before she does!
Beautiful illustrations by Yas Imamura help to tell the story as George’s hand slides over Tama’s before the narrative gets that far. The author’s note at the end brings understanding, an important history lesson, and a challenge for today that will be useful to readers, both young and old. She explains that while the story is true, she has invented the dialogue except for one sentence that she took from her grandmother’s journal, “The miracle is in all of us.”
The book is wonderful for kids and all other ages who learn a joyful story placed in the midst of a blemish on our history.