Children's Books:
The Zoey Series

A young girl solves the problem of her school library’s checkout limit in Sharp’s picture-book ode to book-lending.

 

Zoey is enchanted by books; she wants her Nana to read them to her from the beginning to the end. As she learns to read herself, it becomes her favorite activity. She writes her own stories in sidewalk chalk and in scrapbooks. At school, she’s delighted to see there’s a library, but wait—“the school had a limit. / WHAT???? ONE BOOK PER VISIT!” Montgomery’s soft-edged illustrations capture Zoey’s dismay perfectly: How can a child with insatiable curiosity ever read all of the books she wants if she can only take out one at a time? The solution: Nana takes Zoey to the public library, and soon after, Zoey takes all her friends. When they all decide to bring books for Zoey’s show-and-tell, Zoey’s able to share her love of the library with her class. The story comes full circle, imagining Zoey as a grandmother reading to her own story-loving grandchild. Sharp’s story is sweet and full of library love. In the text’s verses, the scansion and rhyme schemes vary—rhymes sometimes occur in the middle of a couplet, rather than at the end, making it easy to lose the rhythm in a read-aloud. But the story shines through, elevated by Montgomery’s pictures of blond-haired Zoey’s classroom and her diverse group of friends.

 

A love song to libraries and kids who find joy in reading.