Michelle Knudsen

The public library was my home away from home as a child, and I vividly recall how eagerly I anticipated my weekly Saturday visits, and the deep sense of contentment I felt, when wandering through the stacks and browsing the shelves. With a lifetime of affection for this most wonderful of public institutions, it's hardly surprising that I have a soft spot for books which highlight the joy and pleasure to be had therein...

Library Lion is one such book, and I thank my friend Chandra for show more putting me on to it. It is the heartwarming story of a lion who wanders into the library one day, and - after learning that he must obey the rules - finds a new calling. Whether he's dusting the encyclopedias with his tail, or licking head-librarian Miss Merriweather's envelopes, the lion makes himself useful. But when he finds that he must break the rules, will he lose his newfound home?

This engaging story, accompanied by Kevin Hawkes' endearing pencil and acrylic illustrations, makes for a very satisfying picture book. It also offers an ideal jumping off point for a discussion about the nature of rules: when to follow them, and when not to. Highly recommended! show less

I checked out Evil Librarian, the first book in the Evil Librarian trilogy, because I'd won an advance reading copy of the third book, Curse of the Evil Librarian. I'm glad I did. This book is comic horror, not unlike 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' It also takes place in a high school as the first few seasons did, but there's no Chosen One and no vampires. The librarian is the Big Bad, as if you couldn't guess from the title.

Our heroine is Cynthia 'Cyn' Rothschild. She has her dream role in the show more school musical: technical director. This year they're doing 'Sweeney Todd.' As our book opens, Cyn's biggest difficulties are creating a workable version of the Sweeney Todd murder chair and her crush on handsome Ryan Halsey, who is playing the lead. He hardly seems to know she exists. Not all the encouragement of her best friend, Annie Gibson, can get her to strike up a conversation with him. When he hands her her fallen notebook, she can't say a word.

It's not long before Annie gets a crush of her own: John Gabriel, the school's attractive young librarian. Cyn doesn't see what Annie (and other students) see in Mr. Gabriel, but the librarian's attentions to her friend send Cyn's alarm bells ringing. Of course Annie won't hear a word against him.

Cyn finally has an actual conversation with Ryan -- in the kind of circumstances that could make a person with a crush to want a hole to appear underneath him/her so s/he could disappear forever. It turns out better than Cyn expected. It's nice she has that because things involving the librarian and the library are getting quite creepy. Touch is involved and the effects give Cyn plenty of cause for concern. Ryan is unnerved when it happens to his friend, Jorge, but he hasn't observed as much as Cyn has.

That doesn't mean Ryan is going to believe Cyn when she tries to make him believe there's something wrong with Mr. Gabriel. Luckily, he does follow her when she walks away from his disbelief and goes to the library. Ryan's reaction to what Mr. Gabriel is doing made me laugh aloud. I even quoted it to my sister. (I also loved the librarian's response to Ryan's first words to him.)

Turns out that Cyn has the same immunity that Dr. Julia Hoffman had during the original 'Dark Shadows' soap opera's homage to H.P. Lovecraft, the Leviathan storyline. (Yes, this is a plug for a cult show that's cheesy, but grows on you. The episodes before vampire Barnabas Collins joins the cast are good for background information, but you may skip ahead if you wish.) Good thing that the evil librarian didn't take Cyn seriously as a threat, so he didn't kill her when she learned his secret.

Cyn, with Ryan's help, try to find some way to thwart Mr. Gabriel's diabolical scheme. Their first attempt to enlist an adult to help them goes wrong -- very wrong. Then they get some advice from Aaron Litske, an expert at the shop called Books of Darkness. Pity Aaron has his own reason for helping them.

Thanks to Aaron, they get to meet another member of Mr. Gabriel's people: the scary and sexy Ms. Královna. George Kingston is a third. There will be others whose names we won't learn. If Cyn and Ryan weren't committed to saving the day, it would be an excellent time to fake an illness that would let them stay home.

The night of the play is when Messrs. Gabriel and Kingston are all set to unleash their plan. Thanks to Cyn and Ms. Královna, things don't exactly work out for our villains. There's still a horrifying journey and a big fight scene to get through if Cyn and some kidnapped victims can make it back.

Notes:

Chapter 3: That episode of the original "Twilight Zone" is "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (neatly spoofed in the 'The Man Who Cried Clown' on 'Johnny Bravo').

Chapter 5: Cyn learns about the existence of super-roaches.

Chapter 7: Signor De Luca's great-grandmother was a fortune-teller, a real one.

Cyn's inner monologues about her crush on and lust for Ryan are amusing, especially when she's trying to 'down girls!' her nerve endings while there's some serious planning/escaping to do. I remember when I had a crush on a cute fellow student that died when we chatted while we both stuck waiting. He was sooo boring. Luckily for Cyn, Ryan is brave, good, and talented as well as handsome. Cyn's fears as Annie falls more and more under the evil librarian's influence were understandable. Although the only version of 'Sweeney Todd' I've ever seen was the 1982 TV movie with George Hearn as Sweeney and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, I enjoyed Cyn's descriptions of the rehearsal and opening night. I really liked the way she solved the barber chair problem. The big fight scene was tense.

The cover is a nice drawing of the evil librarian's head, but I got a chuckle out of the back cover showing a book pocket with the three main teens' names on the back of the book card stuck in the pocket. (The title is An Introduction to the Italian Language by Anthony Romano, by the way.)

You don't have to be in high school to enjoy this book. I graduated in 1972 and I certainly did.

[June 7, 2019 addendum] I posted a question about Signor De Luca's gray cat on Michelle Knudsen's facebook page. Here is her reply:

'I believe Signor De Luca's gray cat somehow knew (via special extra cat senses) that she was not intentionally abandoned. She set out to find her destiny, experienced a series of extraordinary adventures, and ended up the happy and well-fed companion of a middle-aged woman with a passion for sailing. She spends a lot of time on the sea, watching the fish and the birds, and gets to visit exciting new places all over the world. There is also ample cuddling, petting, and napping; true affection for and from her new human; and the occasional romantic evening with a handsome local tomcat.' (Hurrah!) show less

The "unusual egg which hatches out into a dragon" theme - also explored in middle-grade fantasies such as Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher and Weird Henry Berg, not to mention early readers like Dragon Trouble - is given a schoolroom setting in Michelle Knudson's Argus, a sweet picture-book about a class science project that produces some... unusual results. When Sally notes that her egg is different from the others, her teacher, Mrs. Henshaw, replies: Don't be difficult," a response that she show more uses again and again, as Sally notes the differences between her hatchling, and the other chicks. But when Argus goes missing, and Sally - who decides she likes her unusual charge after all - is distraught, Mrs. Henshaw and the other students rush to help.

As the friend who recommended this one to me noted in her own review, the picture-book world is awash with the "different is cool" message right now. Argus stands out from the crowd, however, not simply because it highlights the difficulties of being different, rather than just concentrating on the pleasures, but also because the artwork, done by Andréa Wesson in watercolor and ink, is so very engaging. I liked the message here, but I also liked the humor and heart of the story, with Sally's ambiguous feelings, and Argus' disruptive habits. The finale, in which Mrs. Henshaw directs her "Don't be difficult" at someone other than Sally, really had me chuckling! show less

The hot new school librarian is not as human as he appears to be, and he's chosen Cynthia's best friend Annie to be his bride when he rules the underworld. Which he plans to do, but not until after the school's production of Sweeney Todd opens, because as everyone knows, demons love Sweeney Todd. Between her duties as technical director for the show and her desperate attempts to save Annie, Cyn has her hands full. Oh, and she also has a crush on a hot guy -- who ends up helping her with the show more whole demon problem.

I devoured this fantastically fun read in one evening. Librarianship and theatre: what else could I ask for? I love that Cyn is the tech director (and a talented one at that). Definitely recommended! show less