Anything's Possible (the movie)

Kelsa (Eva Reign) likes animals and flowers. She is smart and pretty and loves her friends. She is also trans. Khal (Abubakr Ali) is smitten with Kelsa who is in his art class. He is not sure how his family would take it if he dated a trans girl, and he is sure he would lose his best friend Otis (Grant Reynolds). 

Ultimately, this is simply a sweet teenage romance with a standard boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back arc. The boy-loses-girl piece takes place in the school library, where Kelsa and Khal's loud argument earns them a severe "shushing". 

Khal also has some old card catalog drawers in his bedroom. It is not clear what he uses them for, but they do look cool.

Director Billy Porter's heart shines bright in this one.

Stranger Things 4, Episode 3 "The Monster and the Superhero"

In a library research scene reminiscent of Margot Kidder's in The Amityville Horror our heroines Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Robin (Maya Hawke) review some old tabloid newspapers on microfilm surrounding the Creel murders. The possibility of a house possessed by demons further analogizes the classic horror film. See also Stranger Things 2 Episode 3 "The Pollywog".

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections - by Eva Jurczyk

A missing manuscript, a missing librarian, and a desperately ill department head are all concerning aspects of this story. The most concerning of all, however, was that Liesl Weiss had to abort her sabbatical in order to sift through it all.  And of course, through it all she is berated and undermined by the pompous University president. 

Things in this novel that were absolutely believable: The University President asks Liesl to keep quiet about the missing books, and the missing librarian (no need for bad press, and what would the donor's think?); the male library director could count on his (mostly) female staff to cover for him, while he always got the credit; when a woman is put in charge of the library she is constantly questioned by those she supervises who also point out that the previous (male) director did not do it that way. 

This was road-trip listening for our recent mid-west adventure. While I don't typically enjoy mysteries,  this one eventually grew on me, although when it started neither my husband nor I thought that we would be especially interested.

Holly & Ivy (the movie)

Melody (Janel Parrish), a young, eager, recent library school graduate moves to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and starts haunting the Bridgewater Branch of the public library hoping to get a job. She keeps hopping around with ideas for the endlessly patient children's librarian (Anne Sward) even though it has been explained to her, repeatedly, that there is no funding for any new hires. Meanwhile, she befriends her neighbor Nina (Marisol Nichols) and Nina's daughters (Holly and Ivy). Of course, in true Hallmark Christmas movie fashion, there is also a dreamy new beau, Adam (Jeremy Jordan). As the movie takes place during the Christmas season all of the following take place over a few weeks: we learn that Nina is dying and has no family who will be able to care for her daughters when she is gone; Melody is a foster child who had only herself to rely on; Melody bought a fixer-upper house that needs serious renovation; Adam is both a building contractor (what his parents want) and a furniture builder (his true passion). There are a lot of deadlines that stretch credulity, and of course everything comes together just in time for the holidays. 

My father-in-law recommended this movie for its librarian-theme, its Wisconsin setting, as well as its Bridgewater connection. 

Hell of a Book - by Jason Mott

 

Add this book to the likes of The Seven Minutes, Inkheart, Commonwealth, and The Blind Assassin - books about fictitious books with the same name.

This work begins with a typical comedic scenario involving an author, and one of his fans in flagrante delicto being discovered by the woman's husband. The cuckold then chases the naked author into an elevator and the author then winds up  in bed with the front desk clerk. The book takes a turn, however, and themes of race, and mental illness come to the fore.

Over the course of  a book tour the unnamed author (the narrator) is confronted by the demons of his past, as well as the ghost of a young black boy who was killed by a police officer. The author is never quite sure what is real and what he is imagining, leaving the reader to consider all possibilities. 

Nour's Secret Library - by Wafa' Tarnowska

Based on a true story of children in Syria rescuing books from bombed buildings during a war to create a library, cousins Nour and Amir sort books into categories, clean them, and build shelves from discarded wood to create a library for their neighbors. All found books became part of the library 

big books, small books, thin books and fat books. Some were in Arabic, while others were in foreign languages - English Armenian, Greek, French, even Hebrew and Syriac.

The library was always open for those who wanted to read or learn something new.

Rescuers borrowed medical books to learn about the human body and how to treat wounds. Teachers looked for ideas for home lessons. Even Nour's Baba borrowed cookbooks to learn how to make foreign pastries and cakes, looking forward to a day when he could once again try out new recipes. 

It was especially troubling for me to read this story of a hunger for knowledge in light of  all the stories I see about those who are attempting to restrict books in the United States. No book in Nour's secret library was deemed unworthy. The books in Nour and Amir's library brought hope to all.

Reading this children's book I was reminded of The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu. Save the books!

The Library Fish - by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

 

Library Fish loves greeting all the library visitors, and going to story hour, and taking adventures in the bookmobile. When a snow storm closes the library Library Fish learns the real magic of books as she escapes her fish bowl and takes off on some extraordinary adventures.