Here Lies the Librarian Paperback – September 6, 2007

My sons and I listened to this audiobook on a recent trip and we all enjoyed it. There was enough character development and a great plot to keep me interested, and the storyline moved along well and had enough action to keep the attention of both my 10 year old, as well as my 17 year old. We have read and/or listened to several books by this author and he is an excellent storyteller with an elegant style of writing. This is the type of literature I love to share with my children.

Great book for reading aloud to elementary through high school kids (yes, my high schooler still loves a good bed time story!) I would recommend all of his books. Great lessons in history and great laughs at the same time.

Richard Peck is one of the most gifted writers of our time and this book proves it. His main character can be a male or female - can be a child or an adult - and always the character becomes believable - becomes real - to the reader.

but I can't. I thoroughly enjoyed Richard Peck's "A Long Way From Chicago" and "A Year Down Yonder." He is a marvel at recreating another time and another place, and he does a fine job with this rural Indiana town in the early years of the 20th century. And Jake and Peewee (also known as Eleanor) are finely drawn characters - as are most of the others we meet.My only real problem with the book is that I really, really dislike the first chapter - so much so that I almost stopped reading the book at the bottom of page 11. I'm glad I kept going because all of the remaining chapters are first rate. The offending chapter has to do with a tornado tearing up the town and part of its adjacent cemetary. I thought it was unnecessarily grotesque, and nothing that happens in the rest of the book is dependent in any way on the events in chapter one. It's possible, I suppose, that one could look at the tornado in a metaphorical sense (the only explanation I can come up with) because "winds of change" do blow into town in chapter two. We meet emancipated women who act as role models for Peewee/Eleanor, and we have Eleanor herself coming to terms with her impending maturity and subsequent self-reliance. So, I recommend reading the first four or five pages, then skipping to the first page of chapter two and continuing on to the end of the book. It's a good book - but not a great one like either of the two Grandma Dowdel books I mentioned up front.

This is a great book. It has some excitement, joy, sadness, and ingenuity. I recommend any book by Richard Peck.

Not my favorite from Richard Peck. Entertaining and easy to read. Will pass it on to my granddaughter.

A wonderful story with a surprise beginning and a heartwarming end. Family loyalty, love of friends, dastardly enemies, and sidetracked dreams weave together in a rough-seamed tale with enough jolts and jitters to keep you on the road to The End. Cheer for Peewee who loves well and dreams big.

Awesome very adventurous great for any grade school child. I loved ut and I would recomend it to anybody HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!