Wirral Libraries Bookbuzz discussion

This was one of the books I took on holiday a while ago. Being a librarian myself it was a must read and I also left it on the shelf when I came home, in the hope that someone else would enjoy it on a blustery day in Robin Hood’s Bay.

I found it a very easy read, gentle and enjoyable. It painted a rosy glow picture of small town life and uplifting nostalgia.

However, on another level there was no airbrushing of the small town, distrust, snobbery and prejudice. A newcomer to a small town winning over the locals, is an old story, but, as in this case it doesn’t always have a happy ending. For Sylvia, at least.

Talking of endings, although I enjoyed the second part of the book, I didn’t think it was necessary and would have been just as happy for it not to have tied up the loose ends. A bit of a cliff hangar would have sufficed. Did Sylvia actually make any difference at all to the lives of the children or did things just resort to how they were before? It was nice to know she did have some influence over her young friends, but I didn’t think it needed saying.

I loved the character development, especially of the children. Their relationships with Sylvia and through her to the books is heartwarming. Most of the adult characters were out of the box, met them before types, but no less enjoyable for it.

Of course, I would like to think that librarians can have a transforming effect on the lives of children, there are memorable librarians through the years that, even now, fill me with respect for their achievements.

There are some familiar themes, library closures, the patriarchal nature of libraries (though not so much now it must be said) but trust me, this book bears no relation to the reality of today’s library service.

If you want a treatise on today’s library service this isn’t it, but well written and enjoyable, it was an escapism from reality, a feel good read. Sometimes that is all we need.

I had mixed feelings about this book. A gentle stroll through 1950's village life in rural England. I enjoyed the descriptions of a way of life that has long gone and the relationships between the country folk was told vividly, but it never really got going for me . I felt a little bored half way in and had to push myself to finish it. However it brought back fond memories of my weekly visits to the library as a child. Nice enough book but a bit dull

This was our Group reading for March 2020.

Fortuitously I had tried the idea of reading a children's book earlier this year as recommended by the heroine of this month's book. It was Judith Kerr's 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit'. That book had the merit of dealing with the rather gritty subject of a child's experiences of being a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. Regrettably I think 'The Librarian' has rather less merit. It might compete with 'Nightingales at War' which we read in October 2018 as the lightest book we've had to read.

My strongest criticism is for Part Two which didn't really gel in my reading as a practical follow on to the earlier story. I had to work hard to establish who the characters in Part Two were and frankly their 21st Century lives didn't interest me - they seemed too remote from the characters I'd just spent 336 pages reading about. It felt as if it was a simplistic and unnecessary attempt to wrap up the loose ends from the main story.

The main story was easy to read - so I got to the end easily enough - but some of the details of the 1950s lifestyle troubled me as being unrealistic and the author obviously had trouble with her happy ending agenda when the story wrote itself into the cul-de-sac of redundancy.

In the 1950s given all the social prejudices would the married GP really have gone to bed with the young Librarian, would she have allowed this to happen? So that bit felt as if modern standards had been imported into the book. Equally the business of being able to rent a small house with the income from a modest job doesn't fit with my understanding of the difficulties of housing shortages which I thought were a big feature of Britain right up to the end of the 1960s. There was also a large slice of the 'Darling Buds of May' easy and positive community spirit in the way the cottage was repaired following the storm that didn't seem to be a reflection of real life.

On a more positive note I did find the story of the young librarian being able to establish a new foothold as being credible. in a way it reminded me of Kate Adie's autobiography which described a charmed early career in local radio where as a graduate trainee she too was able to carve out a niche because management didn't feel the need to control all that their staff did.

So my conclusion is that - as with all our books it was interesting to read something I wouldn't have come to myself but I wouldn't particularly recommend it to the committed readers of a Reading Group.