The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander
/The Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander
Available now
From the colorful and beautiful cover art to the page turning adventure inside, every single page of this book is delightful. I especially like the extra touch on the back cover-our adventuress Lenora is holding a lantern and the cover is glossy where the light would shine out. Very well done.
Lenora is lucky in many ways-she’s highly intelligent, has wealthy parents, and her nanny is completely inattentive. You would think that riding around in a limo all day would be exciting, but to Lenora, it’s just like riding along with anyone else as they do errands for themselves and completely ignore you. You know, like grocery shopping? All that changes when Lenora’s nanny visits the Library to find a book that will impress one of her friends. While there, Lenora sneaks off and is quickly caught up in a strange and wonderful adventure. Lenora finds herself working as a Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian under the watchful eyes of Malachi, the Chief Answerer. From there, she helps out time-travelling robots, the King of Starpoint, ants, and tardigrades! Flying through space, being shrunk and unshrunk, and even riding an ant are just the beginning of Lenora’s adventures as a Librarian. But it’s not all fun and games. There are evil people lurking about in bowler hats and trench coats-that’s how you know they’re evil, it’s always a trench coat-and they are intent on stopping Lenora from succeeding at her job. What they don’t know is that Lenora is fearless and determined. She doesn’t back down from any task and is willing to jump right in to save her patrons.
I ordered this for the Youth Department at the Library and I couldn’t wait to read it over my lunch break. Ok, so I may have read half of it while the Boss was gone and then read the other half over my break, but really, does it matter?
It’s a fast paced story with a new adventure every few pages which will keep kids engaged. Lenora is a really well written character-she’s smart, courageous, and willing to try anything once, but she’s also not a snotty brat who is really annoying. As Lenora helps out her Patrons her name badge changes to add different titles such as “MOOSE Pioneer” and it was fun to see how her accomplishments would be worded on her badge after each adventure. I’m hoping there will be more books after this that follow Lenora on to bigger and grander adventures-maybe even to train an apprentice herself. That would be cute.
If you would like this gem for the kid in your life, or yourself, you can grab one here: