Qualified Children’s Librarians – almost an extinct species these days – were always something of a breed apart I recall at a multi-local authority buying consortium meeting, the collective sigh or the odd chuckle whenever someone had to say, speaking to a proposal, “But my children’s Librarians …” So, fierce crusaders, defenders of their patch and, um, special. Having been a public librarian for nearly four decades it was hard to resist The librarian, and having married a Children’s Librarian, doubly so, for our heroine, Sylvia Blackwell is one of those too. A nd modernist dust jackets were well de rigueur by then. For we are in 1958, and Cliff Richard is a cause for concern among worried parents (I can remember my mum unhappy, seeing him perform on telly: “Look at him! Look at the state of him!”). Except … such a shame it’s the wrong period. Clothette-bound, lightly impressed lettering, gold on the leaves of the decorative vines that frame the sides of the pasted in semi-glossy colour reproduction there are even restrained printed endpapers too. The hardback edition of Salley Vickers‘ The librarian (Viking, 2018) is a joy to hold and behold – an imaginative period touch from the publisher.
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