The writing was good, the descriptions were clear, but oh, dear dog, so slow.

And fillling it with a group of characters who were difficult to keep separate was not a good idea; I still didn’t know who was who at the end.

I’m not a fan of off-the-wall writing, but there was nothing here that didn’t happen exactly as you’d predict it to.

Most of the stuff I review is reasonable ideas let down by the writing quality. This is, more unusually, the reverse.

Regards,
AdventureMom

Perhaps you could convince P.M. Butler to write another another Squonk the dragon story?

It takes me back to childhood memories of when I was young and my spinster aunt would take me to an old library in her neighborhood.

How every corner held a secret and every book it’s own world

and the dark mysterious reference section I was always too young to be allowed to visit

magical

Sincerely,
The Blaine Boy

Listening to this brought back all those magical feelings of the library I used to have in full force. I love the beauty of Dinsy and how she was raised not just by the librarians, but the library itself. I loved, loved, loved the fairy tale feel and Klages’ style of writing. It’s rare that I listen to a podcast twice, but this one I definitely want to sit down in a quiet room and listen for pure enjoyment.

And then I think I’ll start going to the library more.

The imagery was unprecidented. I especially loved the descriptions of the fireplaces and Children’s Room. It brought me back to memories of my own childhood library.

Sadly, I found the story soft-toothed and cliched. None of the librarians I know would want to be stuck in time and all would realize that it’s the “outside world” that creates the exact thing that they protect.

As for Dinsy, she held no fascination for me at all. I couldn’t care less what happened to her after she left the library.

It wasn’t the magical library that grants wishes that made me love this. It was how the author constructed perfectly how it feels to be in the library at such a young age. It feels full and as if every book is telling its own story all at the same time.

The story also reminded me how wonderful it is to form new words with your mouth. This was common when I was young, but it is becoming harder to come by.

also “non-friction section.”

The independent characters of each librarian really helped to develop and move the story, and Dinsy wasn’t simple or naive. And I didn’t make any real comparisons to witches (ala Andre Norton or other semi-magical genres) until the very last.

Although it did remind me (a LOT) of Norton at the very end when I finally looked back and compared all the librarians.

And I had to laugh at the reference to Marian. My daughter played Marian (the librarian) in a college production of “The Music Man”. Although no librarian never hummed “Stairway to Heaven”…

And I really loved the “10 things to remember” for the library.

I had to laugh at the librarians’ comments on the early teen years, exactly what we said about our daughter: “remember when she was a sweet kid”. They still are at heart, and we know that as parents. We are really lamenting for ourselves at the transitions we go through as our children grow up. We love every part of our kids, even the parts that want to break free of us.

I loved this story, my local library here in the U.K. is a Carnegie.

Thanks.

I loved it. Absolutely. I loved it so much I wanted to share it with my wife. We both shared a love of the Carnegie Library while stationed in Pittsburgh over the past four years, and I thought the story would strike a chord in her.

My wife, who is a green-eyed, black-haired beauty I met while she was studying for her Masters in Library and Information Science, hated it. She found it sappy.

I was having a lot of fun listening to the story, so much so that I managed to forget for a little while that with any sort of “reality” making an appearance, one had to acknowledge that in some ways Dinsy’s completely sheltered upbringing bordered on child abuse, or at least neglect.

This thought took full shape at the door with the key, as visions of some creepy Witch-Ya Sisterhood (with unsettling implications) danced through my head.

Luckily, all was made right in the end, and we’re left with just a wonderful tale, and a shout-out to what WE will likely be the last generation to see: an old fashioned library, where many of us first learned that magic was real.

… criminey… being a parent has turned me into a sap. I would’ve hated this a decade ago.

(Minor) Spoiler alert!

Even if it hadn’t been so enjoyable on its own merits, it would totally have been worth it for the phrase “feral librarians”!

End of (Minor) Spoiler

So much of this story resonated with me. I wonder if one would have to be of a particular age (or older) and remember libraries not unlike this (the library in my town was more central than this one, so what happened in the story - at least, the good part - couldn’t have happened, though the bureaucracy could have, and may well have).

I also liked hearing about Ann’s favourite books in the introduction. We have some favourites in common - I loved the Edward Eager books (and still do, and am now able to share that love with my daughter!) - and there are many she mentioned that I haven’t read that I am now looking forward to investigating. (My tastes, or at least the books that I knew about as a child, ran to more straight fiction, like the Alvin Fernald stories, the Danny Dunn series, almost everything by Cleary, and the Great Brain books.)

And, like Ann, my heart is wrenched every time I see those old, loved books put out as Discards. I did a similar rescue mission with a few of the Great Brain books (though not the actual copies I’d read as a kid - different library in a different city) as Ann did with the Norton.

I loved Rachel’s reading. Did I detect a bit of emotional choking-up in her voice near the end there? It would have been hard to avoid; I was rather overcome myself, even though I saw it coming. (In my opinion, an ending you can predict is fine, as long as it’s the right ending! And besides, I only predicted its general nature, not its specific form.)

This is - and I imagine will be for a long time to come - my favourite PodCastle episode.

For those who’d rather discuss it in the forum, the link is http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=2282.0

Here’s hoping the HTML in this post works, or I shall be respectfully requesting Rachel to remove it.